Tashkent: Uzbekistan on Monday handed out sentences to 21 people linked to the deaths of 68 children who consumed a contaminated cough syrup produced in India.

At least 86 children were poisoned in the Central Asian country between 2022 and 2023, of whom 68 died.

Indian citizen Singh Raghvendra Pratap, the director of a company that imported the Doc-1 Max syrup into Uzbekistan, was given the harshest sentence of 20 years.

He was found guilty of corruption, tax fraud and forgery, according to the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan.

Samples of the syrup revealed it was contaminated with either diethylene glycol or ethylene glycol, which are toxic substances used as industrial solvents that can be fatal if ingested even in small amounts, the World Health Organization said in January 2023.

India subsequently cancelled the production licence for Marion Biotech, which manufactured the cough syrups.

During the same period, at least 70 children died in Gambia from acute kidney failure after consuming another syrup imported from India.

In Indonesia, another syrup in similar containers caused the deaths of more than 200 children between 2022 and 2023.