Contaminated cough syrups sickens 35 people in Paraguay

The number of people who have fallen sick to contaminated cough syrups has increased to 35, Paraguay's Ministry of Public Health said in a statement on Friday. All the patients are hospitalized in stable condition, with 27 people discharged after showing clinical improvement, according to the statement issued in Asuncion, Paraguay's capital. The ministry said no case of death attributable to the drug's ingestion has been reported. The intoxication incident first occurred on Monday when 21 children got poisoned after taking cough syrups made with dextromethorphan hydrobromide. The ministry issued a pharmacological alert afterwards to ban the producing, marketing and distribution of substances that include the dextromethorphan hydrobromide as an active ingredient, which was apparently contaminated.