Uzbekistan has fully settled compensation payments with the families of children who died or were injured after taking a cough medicine, with the first reports of victims emerging in late 2022, the website infohub.kz reports.
According to the publication, over three years only 20% of the awarded sums were recovered from those convicted. The state covered the remaining 80%.
Parents of the deceased children said the payments arrived between October 20 and 24 this year. The press service of the Bureau of Compulsory Enforcement under the Prosecutor General's Office confirmed the information.
Under the court rulings, the funds were to be recovered from those found guilty in the criminal case. Among them were former heads and deputy heads of the Agency for the Development of the Pharmaceutical Industry, as well as representatives of the company Quramax.
It remains unknown how many families received the money and what the total amount of payments from the state budget was.
Recall that in December 2022, media reported that 15 children had died in Uzbekistan's Samarkand region within two months of taking the Dok-1 Max syrup. Kazakhstan's Ministry of Health noted that the drug is not sold in the country.
The death toll later rose: by the time the verdict was handed down, 68 children had died and 16 had been injured.
Criminal cases over the children's deaths were opened in Uzbekistan and in India, where the drug was manufactured.
A total of 23 people stood trial, and the court handed down verdicts in February 2024.