India seeks corrective action from cough syrup firm Marion Biotech linked to Uzbek deaths

"The firm will not carry out any medicine manufacturing work until the final decision of the appellate authority," Gupta said.

Marion did not respond to a request for comment.

Marion is among three Indian companies whose cough syrups the World Health Organization and other agencies have linked to the deaths of 141 children in Uzbekistan, Gambia and Cameroon since the middle of last year, in one of the world's worst such waves of poisoning.

Gupta said in the September order seen by Reuters that the Uttar Pradesh government on Aug. 11 overturned cancellation of Marion's manufacturing licence by the state in March because "there's no known case of a lack of quality in other medicines manufactured by the firm".

"Its permission to make products using propylene glycol is cancelled, and it is allowed to make and sell all other products," the order read.

The company's production was suspended on Dec. 27 last year after Uzbekistan said Marion's Ambronol and DOK-1 Max syrups contained unacceptable amounts of toxins diethylene glycol (DEG) and ethylene glycol (EG), which are typically used in products not meant for human consumption.

Tests in January by an Indian government laboratory found 22 samples of Marion-made syrups were "adulterated and spurious," the country's drug controller said in March.

India's pharmaceuticals department told parliament the same month that tests had also shown that a sample of cough syrup-ingredient propylene glycol taken from Marion's factory contained EG.

Marion's then-head of operations, Tuhin Bhattacharya, earlier told Reuters the company had exported cough syrups for more than a decade without testing propylene glycol for impurities like DG or EG.