Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala government has directed that no medicines should be given to children below 12 years of age without a valid prescription from a certified doctor. Even an old prescription should not be reused to administer medicines, the health department announced after a high-level meeting chaired by Minister Veena George on Monday.

The decision follows reports linking Coldrif cough syrup to the recent deaths of children in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Kerala had already banned the sale of Coldrif syrup earlier. The government has now decided to issue special guidelines on the use of cough medicines for children and has constituted a three-member expert committee to study the matter and submit an urgent report.

The committee comprises the State Drugs Controller, the Child Health Nodal Officer, and the State President of the Indian Academy of Paediatrics (IAP). Based on its recommendations, Kerala will frame specific guidelines for the use of pediatric cough syrups.

According to the Health Department, instructions have already been issued to the Drugs Controller to ensure that medicines are dispensed to children only against a doctor’s prescription. Awareness campaigns will also be intensified. “The dosage of medicines for children is determined by doctors based on the child’s weight. Hence, a medicine prescribed for one child should not be given to another, as it could do more harm than good,” the department said.

The department also clarified that no adverse incidents linked to cough syrups have been reported in Kerala so far. The minister directed officials to conduct a special review to verify this and to organise awareness programmes for the public. Training sessions for paediatricians and other doctors will be held in collaboration with the IAP.

Meanwhile, the Drugs Control Department has stepped up inspections across the state. The issue with Coldrif syrup was traced to batch SR 13, distributed outside Kerala in Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, and Puducherry. The sale of Coldrif syrup has been suspended in Kerala as a precautionary measure, and distribution by all eight dealers in the state has been halted. Another company’s cough syrup was also found problematic in Rajasthan, though the affected batches were not sold in Kerala.

The high-level meeting was attended by the Additional Chief Secretary of Health, National Health Mission (NHM) State Director, Drugs Controller, Director of Health Services, Director of Medical Education, Additional Directors, District Medical Officers, Child Health Nodal Officer, and the IAP State President.