Overview
- The five-month-old, identified as Ruhi Minote, was given an over-the-counter herbal cough syrup in Bichhua and was declared dead at a community health centre early Thursday.
- District authorities sealed Kurethe/Kuratha Medical Store, seized remaining stock, and sent the syrup for laboratory analysis, while the infant’s viscera was dispatched to the Jabalpur forensic lab.
- Police registered an inquest under Section 194 of the BNSS and are questioning shop staff as the state food and drugs department tests samples from the outlet.
- Chhindwara’s chief medical officer cautioned that causation remains unconfirmed pending post-mortem and lab reports, and the SDM noted the child did not exhibit symptoms seen in earlier Coldrif cases, with pneumonia suspected by local doctors subject to test results.
- The investigation follows a recent toxic cough-syrup crisis linked to the allopathic product Coldrif that resulted in at least two dozen child deaths, leading to arrests, bans, and directives telling chemists not to sell cough syrups to infants under one year without medical advice.