A two-year-old boy has become the third victim of suspected poisoning by a cough syrup prescribed to children in Rajasthan.
Little Tirthraj, from Bharatpur district, was referred to three hospitals but could not be saved.
More families are worried and have reported that their children consumed the syrup, which contains the compound dextromethorphan hydrobromide.
Victim Died Four Days After Taking Syrup
Tirthraj and his four-year-old brother Lalit visited a district hospital in Weir on the morning of September 23 with symptoms of cough and cold.
The doctor prescribed the cough syrup to both brothers.
Their father, Nihal Singh, said that Tirthraj was given the syrup at noon, following which the toddler went to sleep.
READ: Cough Syrup Kills 2 Children In Rajasthan; Doctor Takes It To Prove It's Safe And Faints
When Tirthraj didn't wake up for four hours, the family took him back to the same hospital, from where they were referred to the Zenana Hospital in Bharatpur.
Doctors at Bharatpur examined the prescription from the Weir hospital and also asked the family to share an image of the cough syrup that Tirthraj had consumed.
When the toddler didn't respond to treatment, he was sent to a hospital in Jaipur on September 24.
However, he died in the Jaipur hospital three days later.
"Cough Syrup Was Within The Prescribed Dose"
The doctor who treated Tirthraj in Weir told NDTV, "The patient came to me on September 23 with bronchitis. I wrote a prescription that suggested some injections. We nebulised the patient and also prescribed the cough syrup. But when the patient came back, he was drowsy, and so we gave him a drip and referred him to a larger hospital."
The doctor pointed out that the cough syrup (given to Tirthraj) was within the prescribed dose of 1.5 ml.
"We have now sent medical teams to the patient's house to investigate exactly what happened," the doctor added.
Tirthraj's Cousin Prescribed The Same Syrup
A cousin of Tirthraj was also prescribed the same cough syrup, which has worried the family.
Tirthraj's uncle Brijendra Singh said that after seeing news reports and hearing about a death in Bharatpur earlier, the family realised that Brijendra's child had taken the same syrup.
Though reports link the child deaths to the syrup, private doctors in Rajasthan have said the medicine is quite commonly used and has been in circulation for the last 20 years.
Dr Sushil Sanghi, a senior pediatrician in Jaipur, told NDTV that after Corex and Codeine were banned, Dextromethorphan Hydrobromide has been widely used.
"But it is not a drug that you prescribe for small children, definitely not children below two years of age. It is a salt that is widely used in syrups as a cough suppressant to give relief from persistent symptoms of cough," Dr Sanghi said.
"Overdose can be fatal, leading to symptoms of coma, as the drug affects the brain. But the drug is widely used, so how it caused fatalities should be investigated; perhaps the salt used to make the syrup could have been spurious," he added.
Government Sends Samples For Testing
The Rajasthan government is facing a backlash over reports of the syrup poisoning children.
State Health Minister Gajendra Singh Khimsar said the government has sent samples for testing.
"It is premature to say that there is poison in the cough mixture unless a lab test is done. The lab test will take three days, and we are getting the lab test done from more than one lab," Health Minister Singh said.
"We have withdrawn the syrup, and we can only fix blame once we have proof; we can't do anything more than that," he added.
