Breakthrough in detection of deadly toxins in children’s medicines

University of East London

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A major scientific breakthrough has shown that deadly contaminants in medicinal syrups can be detected in seconds using simple, low-cost tests, offering a realistic way to prevent the deaths of children caused by poisoned medicines.

The findings were made by a research team led by scientists at the University of Oxford and including the University of East London, and published in Nature’s Scientific Reports.

The team has demonstrated, for the first time, that simple, ultra-low-cost tests already used for alcohol detection can be repurposed to identify lethal toxic contaminants in medicinal syrups and their raw materials.

The findings open a realistic new way to prevent contaminated medicines from reaching children, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.

The breakthrough addresses a long-standing and deadly problem. Ethylene glycol (EG) and diethylene glycol (DEG) - industrial chemicals used in antifreeze and brake fluid - have repeatedly entered pharmaceutical supply chains, often through mislabelled or substituted raw ingredients.

In 2022 alone, contaminated syrups caused the deaths of more than 300 children across Indonesia, The Gambia, Uzbekistan and Cameroon. More recently, at least 24 further child deaths were reported in India.

Until now, detecting EG and DEG has depended on formal laboratory techniques that are expensive, time consuming, require highly qualified and trained personnel, and are often unavailable where the risk is greatest.

The research team has shown that this barrier can be overcome by repurposing everyday tools:

• Alcohol test strips, commonly used to detect alcohol in saliva or breast milk, can identify ethylene glycol contamination in under two minutes.
• Disposable breathalysers can distinguish ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol in raw materials in as little as ten seconds.

Both methods cost less than £1 per test, require minimal training, use no hazardous solvents, and can be deployed outside laboratory environments - representing a step-change in what is possible for medicine safety screening across supply chain.

Project leader, Professor Paul Newton of the Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health at the University of Oxford said, "Urgent interventions are needed to be implemented to prevent these recurring tragedies of childhood deaths and screening devices for detecting the toxins offer great promise in enabling this."

Dr Merchant, from the University of East London's Department of Bioscience, is a co-author on the study.

He said, “More than 80 years have passed since the sulfanilamide disaster, when diethylene glycol was mistakenly used in a liquid medicine - later infamously termed the ‘elixir of death’. That tragedy led to the introduction of the most stringent pre-market safety regulations for medicines in the United States and subsequently across Europe.

“Yet, it is deeply concerning that lives continue to be lost today due to illicit contamination with ethylene glycol (EG) and diethylene glycol (DEG), compounded by inadequate regulatory oversight in parts of the developing world.

“Global regulators must act decisively and collaboratively to ensure that no one ever dies from such preventable failures again. By lowering the barrier to detection, this work has the potential to stop contaminated medicines at source and prevent avoidable child deaths.”

The paper, ‘Rapid screening of ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol in raw materials and medicinal syrups using low-cost field deployable assays’, is published in Nature’s Scientific Reports

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Journal

Scientific Reports

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Rapid screening of ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol in raw materials and medicinal syrups using low-cost field deployable assays

Article Publication Date

13-Dec-2025