Rapid, low-cost tests to help prevent child deaths from contaminated medicinal syrups
Professor Paul Newton, who heads the Medicine Quality Research group, is the project lead for large collaboration that has demonstrated that simple, rapid, and inexpensive tests can detect deadly contaminants in medicinal syrups - contaminants that have tragically led to the deaths of hundreds of children worldwide.
Professor Newton said “Urgent interventions are needed to be implemented to prevent these recurring tragedies of childhood deaths and screening devices for detecting the toxins offer great promise in enabling this.”
Study co-leader, Dr Bevin Gangadharan of the Department of Biochemistry and Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery, University of Oxford, said: “The contaminants are usually detected by gas chromatography or thin-layer chromatography, both of which are time-consuming, use harmful solvents, and require trained personnel. Our approach is rapid, uses water, and our publication includes a simple step-by-step protocol sheet that can be easily followed by inspectors, medicine regulators, and syrup manufacturers.”
Read the paper, Rapid screening of ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol in raw materials and medicinal syrups using low-cost field deployable assays