Rapid, low-cost tests can help prevent child deaths from contaminated medicinal syrups

In 2022, contaminated medicinal syrups caused the deaths of more than 300 children across Indonesia, The Gambia, Uzbekistan and Cameroon. Only two months ago, at least a further 24 deaths were reported in India. In response, Oxford’s DEG-EG team is developing novel tests to identify these lethal contaminants in both medicinal syrups and their raw materials.

The team has successfully repurposed commercially available rapid tests, each costing less than £1:

• Alcohol test strips, commonly used to check saliva or breast milk for traces of alcohol before driving or infant feeding, were shown to detect contaminants in medicinal syrups and raw materials in under two minutes.

• Disposable breathalysers, also used for alcohol detection, identified contaminants in raw materials in as little as ten seconds.

These methods offer simple, fast and low-cost tools for identifying contamination of syrups in pharmaceutical supply chains - a crucial step toward preventing future tragedies.

Read the full story on the University of Oxford website.