Experts in toxicology and food security believe the recent spate of food poisoning involving children in South African townships has nothing to do with expired food and everything to do with a banned pesticide that is being illegally brought into the country.
In the latest incident, 24 children in Mpumalanga were rushed to hospital on Thursday with suspected food poisoning.
On October 17, a 13-year-old Limpopo schoolboy died in hospital after eating chips from a shop.
The spate of poisonings appear to have started with an incident in Naledi, Soweto, on October 6, in which six schoolchildren died after eating food from a spaza shop.
Following inspections at spaza shops this week, six people were arrested in connection with selling an illegal chemical.
Health minister Aaron Motsoaledi said shop owners had told officials about a chemical they buy at a local shopping mall.
“Officials went to the mall and confiscated 1,456g of the chemical. Four people were arrested for selling the illegal chemical.”
Two of the suspects are out on R2,000 bail. Yesterday health spokesperson Foster Mohale said two more people had been arrested.
Mostoaledi said it would be irresponsible to name the chemical at this stage.
Gauteng police commissioner Tommy Mthombeni said results from the forensic labs "clearly indicate that the cause is carbamates. It is a bait that kills insects.”
One of South Africa’s leading toxicologists, Dr Gerhard Verdoorn, said he suspected Aldicarb, a banned pesticide, was the root cause of the national crisis.
“Aldicarb is an incredibly toxic pesticide that was banned for possession and use in 2016, yet you can go out in most parts of the country and easily buy it and similar, also banned products, from roadside vendors.”
Aldicarb is a carbamate insecticide which is the active substance in the pesticide Temik, which was discontinued in 2010. It is considered “extremely hazardous” by the World Health Organisation and has been banned in more than 100 countries. In cases of severe poisoning, the victim dies of respiratory failure.
Verdoorn put his own claim to the test on Friday and the previous week.
“I bought Aldicarb today from a vendor in Gqeberha. Last week I found some in Uitenhage [Kariega]. Today I bought two straws — as the vendors call it. At one vendor I bought a straw for R10 and at another I bought one for R5.
“Last week in Uitenhage I saw another vendor selling about 20g for R20. That 20g is enough to kill 40 men weighing 80kg each within 20 minutes,” Verdoorn said.
He believes the pesticide is smuggled in to South Africa.
“I have spoken to many vendors selling Aldicarb. All of them bought it from Zimbabweans who brought it over the border.
Prof Lucia Anelich, an adjunct professor at the Central University of Technology and the owner of Anelich Consulting, a food safety consulting and training business, said this week: “These cases point towards ingestion of a highly toxic chemical — not a microbe — that causes severe illness and death quite quickly, especially in the case of the more vulnerable children.
“Illegal pesticides are entering the country — especially pesticides like aldicarb, which has been banned in South Africa for years. It may not be produced, imported or used in South Africa, therefore, it enters the country illegally. It then gets into the informal sector and is used to kill pests.”
She believes contaminated packaging used to smuggle these banned products is reused.
“Snacks sold in the spaza shops are often purchased in bulk and then repacked either in plastic bags with no further markings or just simply put out in small bowls for children to purchase.
“The practices of unpacking, repacking and display, usually occur in extremely bad and unhygienic conditions where these pesticides are used or stored or have been transported, like in a wheelbarrow or a drum for example. The risk for adulteration of these foods with those chemicals under these conditions is therefore immense.”
Anelich said this would likely be seen as “accidental” adulteration.
“I am not sure that those using and selling these chemicals illegally understand how toxic they really are.”
Police and the national department o health did not respond to questions.
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