Food poisoning kills 23 children as South Africa declares emergency

The six young children had just shared snacks bought from a corner store when they began convulsing. The children, all under 8, died moments later, adding more victims to a wave of food poisoning that authorities say has killed nearly two dozen children in a few months.

The South African government on Thursday declared the poisonings a national disaster, taking action after President Cyril Ramaphosa laid out the scale of the danger. At least 890 people have fallen sick, many of them children, he said in a televised address, adding that the cause was believed to be a pesticide used by business owners and vendors to fight a rat infestation in neglected townships. Expired and counterfeit food products have also been blamed by grieving family members and some residents.

After the deaths of the six children in Johannesburg last month, South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases found traces of terbufos, a hazardous pesticide used in agriculture, in the contents and on the packaging of a snack found with one of the children, Ramaphosa said. Terbufos, a colorless or pale yellow liquid used on crops, can be fatal if ingested or inhaled, or if it comes in contact with humans, according to the National Institutes of Health.

In other cases, South African health authorities found evidence of aldicarb, an agricultural pesticide that is highly toxic to humans. The pesticide has been banned in South Africa since 2016, Ramaphosa said.

These highly toxic chemicals had been adopted as a “street pesticide,” he said, to fight a growing rat infestation in South Africa’s formerly segregated townships and mushrooming shanty towns. In poor communities, where municipalities fail to regularly collect waste, business owners had turned to the toxins to keep vermin away.

In yet other cases, expired food products have been blamed as the cause of death. Some residents and outraged families of children who died have, stoked by long-standing anti-immigrant sentiments, blamed foreign owners of corner stores for the poisonings. The owners, they claim, use pesticide to kill rats and sell expired food items or counterfeit brands of processed food to poor communities where people cannot afford to shop in supermarkets.

The stores, known as spaza shops, are often built in a backyard and operated by migrants. In response, the government will now register these shops, Ramaphosa said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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