A court in Uzbekistan has sent 23 people to jail because 68 kids died after taking bad cough medicine.

These people were in trouble for not paying taxes, selling fake or bad medicine, not doing their jobs right, being careless, faking documents, and taking bribes.

They got different jail times, from 2 to 20 years.

More kids died than they thought at first. At the beginning of the trial, they said 65 kids died, but then they added 3 more to the count.

The bad cough syrups were made by a company in India called Marion Biotech and brought to Uzbekistan by a company called Quramax Medical.

The person in charge at Quramax Medical, Singh Raghvendra Pratar, got the longest jail time of 20 years. Some high-up people who used to decide which medicines could come into the country also got sent to jail for a long time.

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that the cough syrups from Marion Biotech were dangerous after 18 kids in Uzbekistan died from taking them. They said the syrups had harmful stuff in them that shouldn’t be there.

Marion Biotech said they didn’t think the WHO’s warning was right.

Police went to check out Marion Biotech’s place in December 2022. After that, the company had to stop making anything, and the Indian government stopped letting them make medicines.

Later, they weren’t allowed to make medicines ever again.

The court said that each of the 68 kids’ families who died should get $80,000. Families of 4 kids who got really sick from the syrup will get the same amount of money.