The Drug Administration yesterday ordered the Rid Pharmaceutical Company of Brahmanbaria BSCIC area to suspend manufacture and marketing of their products including vitamin and paracetamol suspension.

Following a controversy over the deaths of 24 children after taking drugs of the company, representatives of the Drug Administration yesterday visited the company and took samples for testing. "The company is also ordered to withdraw its products from the market and to publish an announcement in three daily newspapers immediately in this regard," said Director of the Drug Administration Mohammad Ismail Hossain. Sources said the local drug superintendent in Comilla will monitor the situation.

The government authorities also said that the seven-member investigation committee formed on Tuesday has already started collecting samples of vitamin and paracetamol suspension from different areas. If nothing harmful is found in the products of the company, it would go for production again, they said. Mizanur Rahman, managing director of Rid Pharmaceuticals, told The Daily Star that soon after getting the orders he has withdrawn the paracetamol suspension and vitamin from the market though he did not use any harmful compound in his products.

"Even we do not manufacture paracetamol syrup as some of the newspapers mentioned. Rather it is paracetamol suspension that is manufactured by Rid Pharmaceuticals," he added. The death toll due to renal failure since last one and a half months rose to 19 yesterday from 17 at the Dhaka Shishu Hospital. The hospital authorities said that a total of 26 patients with renal failure have been admitted to the hospital from June to July 19 this year and the figure is higher than normal admission.

While talking to The Daily Star, Director of Dhaka Shishu Hospital Prof AR Khan said, as the number is higher than usual, one of the doctors tested a drug at a private laboratory and reported to the health ministry finding poisonous compound in the drug. While visiting the hospital, this correspondent found the mother of Nishita, a one and a half years girl, wailing at the 10-bed renal unit. The girl who was admitted to the hospital due to renal failure died yesterday morning.

Eight-month-old Nipa who was suffering from the same complication died Tuesday night. Currently two patients are receiving treatment there. Earlier, the doctors said that normally some 30 to 40 patients with renal failure are admitted to the Dhaka Shishu Hospital every year and of them 5 to 7 die. But this year, some 19 patients died within one and a half months. Five patients out of eight that got admitted to the Pediatric Nephrology department of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) died during this period.

The deaths forced the university to form a three-member committee on Tuesday to investigate the issue. The committee comprised of Prof Shahana Akhter Rahman of Pediatrics department, Prof Rafikul Alam of the Department of Nephrology and Prof Habibur Rahman of Pediatric Nephrology is supposed to submit its report by the next three working days.

-Daily star