Baku-APA. At least seven people died Friday after drinking toxic cough syrup in Pakistan's eastern city of Gujranwala, mounting the death toll to 19 in similar incidents over the last three days, APA reports quoting Xinhua.
Local TV channel Express reported that over 30 people were shifted to District Hospital of Gujranwala in the country's eastern province of Punjab, after consuming the poisonous cough syrup on Tuesday.
Out of the affected people, 19 died one after another and ten others were shifted to Mao Hospital in the eastern city of Lahore for emergency treatment.
Earlier last month, at least 21 people died after consuming the same cough syrup in Lahore. The authorities claimed to carry out a crackdown against the factory owners and distributors.
The emergence of new cases has highlighted the availability of the syrup in the province and failure of the concerned authorities to ban the syrup.
The police said that the deceased were drug addicts and they drank the locally-manufactured cough syrup for getting intoxicated, but fall seriously sick minutes after gulping it. Doctors said that the medicine was adulterated which caused a serious damage to their internal body organs.
The syrup costs 40 Rupees (0.42 U.S. dollars) and is available at many medical stores in the city.
Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif took notice of the incident on Friday and instructed the concerned health official to monitor the situation and submit a report on it, he also formed an inquiry committee and demanded it to file a report within 72 hours.
The business of spurious drugs is flourishing in the country and many local pharmaceutical companies are involved in it.
Earlier in December this year, 120 people were killed and over 400 were hospitalized after taking adulterated medicine in Lahore.
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