Indian Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss ordered a high-level probe Monday into the death of 49 children, over the past two-and-a-half years, during clinical trails at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), the country's premier medical research institute.
The probe followed a demand for an independent enquiry from the Congress Party into the unusually high number of infant deaths in clinical trials for new drugs at AIIMS.
A total of 4,142 children, of whom 2,728 were under the age of one year, are reported to have enrolled for the clinical trials. A total of 42 clinical trials of various medicines, of which the top five were foreign-made, were reportedly conducted in the given period.
The AIIMS administration, however, said all the 49 children were mortally sick and died naturally.
The studies were reportedly funded by the Indian Council for Medical Research, Department of Bio-technology, World Health Organization, and John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and AIIMS itself.
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