The death toll from the contaminated teething mixture, ‘My Pikin’, in Nigeria has reached 34, even as the regulatory National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) said it had ordered an antidote to the killer drug. The local press said five more children aged four months to two years died of renal failure between Friday and Monday at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital. But health experts said the number could be higher than 34, as many deaths go unreported in the country’s rural areas. Some media reports on Wednesday put the total death from the teething drug at 42. NAFDAC said the 100 doses of antidote it ordered from London would arrive Thursday and be distributed to major hospitals across the nation. The agency said it had so far retrieved 425 bottles of the mixture as it continues to comb stores, clinics and hospitals to remove the mixture from circulation. Several officials of Barewa pharmaceuticals, the Lagos-based company that manufactured the drug have been arrested, NAFDAC said.
