NewsTracker Answers for week of Oct. 17, 2022

Q: Gambia's government said last week that the number of child deaths from acute kidney injury, thought to be linked to Indian-made cough syrups, had risen to 70. Where is the West African nation of The Gambia, the smallest country on the continental mainland?

Circle the area on this map


Q: The factory that made the suspect syrup was shut down by India, which produces about a third of the world's medicines. Which country is the biggest importer of Indian pharmaceuticals?

A. Britain

B. Russia

C. South Africa

D. United States


D. The United States buys 29% of India’s pharmaceutical exports, followed by Britain at 3%, South Africa at 2.5% and Russia at 2.4%. Laboratory analysis of the syrups exported to The Gambia found “unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol as contaminants," according to the World Health Organization.


Q: Indian health officials investigating the problem said it is "usual practice that the importing country tests these imported products.” Africa’s most populous nation said it wants all its drugs cleared before they leave India. What African country has the most people?

A. Egypt

B. Kenya

C. Nigeria

D. South Africa


C. Nigeria.has 225 million people living in 574,002 square miles, compared with 2.4 million people in Gambia’s 4,362 square miles.


Q: Like most of West Africa, Gambia experienced a population decline in the 17th-19th centuries because of ...

A. Colonization

B. Epidemics

C. Slave trade

D. Warfare


C. European ships took more than 12 million people from Africa to work as slaves in the Americas. About 1.8 million people died during the transatlantic voyages, and many perished soon after their arrival in North and South America and the Caribbean.


Q: The Gambia is situated on either side of the Gambia River, which was used to transport slaves to waiting ships. Which European nation transported most of the slaves from what is now Gambia?

A. Britain

B. France

C. Netherlands

D. Portugal


A. While the Portuguese were the first to buy slaves in what is now Gambia, the British controlled the trade there for most of the period. James Island at the mouth of the Gambia River was used to house slaves before being loaded onto ships. It was named after Britain’s King James II. But in 2011, it was renamed Kunta Kinteh Island after an enslaved Gambian ancestor of Alex Haley, U.S. author of Roots.