Newscasts - Grieving father buries son killed by toxic cough syrup in India

Tetralogic Pharmaceuticals

13/10/2025 08:55

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Source: 'Reuters - General news videos'

Description: Neelesh Suryavanshi sent his three-year-old son suffering from acute kidney damage to a hospital, with the hope that the boy might escape the fate of 18 others who died after taking the same toxic medicine in the past month. But his son died the next day. Joshua Lim reports.

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Video Transcript:

Stricken by grief, Neelesh Suryavanshi mourns the loss of his 3-year-old son. The child, Mayank, had been fighting for his life with acute kidney damage for weeks after being given a toxic cough syrup. That medicine, called Coldrif is now linked to the deaths of 19 children in Chhindwara, a district in Central India's Madhya Pradesh state. On Wednesday last week, Nilesh stood outside a government hospital in Nagpur, clutching that same bottle of cough syrup, clinging on to the hope that his son could be saved. But by the next day, that hope was gone, and the father was burying his son.

I just want to say whatever has happened to my child shouldn't happen to anyone else's child. And this syrup should be banned by authorities immediately. No parent should have to go through what I have gone through. No parent should have to witness this devastating moment. I just want to say that.

Tests on Sresan Pharma's Coldrif revealed that the syrup contained toxic diethylene glycol in quantities nearly 500 times above the permissible limit. The owner of the Tamil Nadu-based company, S. Raganathan was arrested in Chennai. Two days later, he was produced in court in Parasia, the town where most of the deaths occurred. Local drug authorities have since launched a crackdown, testing random samples and going door-to-door to retrieve Coldrif bottles. But for Neelesh’ son, it was already too late. Authorities have now flagged two more syrups, Recipe Fresh and Real Life, made by Gujarat-based Shape Pharma and Rednex Pharmaceuticals, both tested positive for the same toxic chemical. India, known as the pharmacy of the world, is the third largest drug producer by volume after the United States and China.