How adulterated cough syrup killed Madhya Pradesh’s children

Two days before Rishika Peepre came down with a cough and cold on August 27, she was doing what five-year-olds do – dancing and playing.

That day, her father Suresh Peepre Khatik, a resident of Madhya Pradesh’s Sethiya village, took her to a local doctor who prescribed her cough syrup.

Rishika vomited the entire night after taking the medicine.

Three days later, she complained of severe stomach pain. Khatik admitted her to a hospital in Chhindwara.

Rishika had always been a healthy child but her condition deteriorated within a week. She was diagnosed with kidney failure and advised dialysis.

As no paediatric dialysis facility existed in Chhindwara, Khatik took her 120 km away to Nagpur’s Nelson hospital, where she underwent nine cycles of dialysis.

By September 16, Khatik ran out of funds. “Doctors said they cannot treat her if I don’t pay. So we got her discharged that day.”

Ten minutes after they left the hospital, Rishika died.

Since August, 11 children in Parasia – the tehsil in MP’s Chhindwara where Rishika lived – have died of kidney failure after consuming cough syrups. All were between the ages of one and six years. At least 10 others have been hospitalised.

All the children had been administered one of two cough syrups – Coldrif, manufactured by the Tamil Nadu-based...

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