(Reuters) – Six children who died in a South African township earlier this month had ingested a chemical compound used in pesticides, the country’s health minister said on Monday (28), in a case that has prompted calls for tighter food safety controls.
Local media have reported that the children died after eating snacks bought from an informal corner-shop in the Soweto township near Johannesburg.
“The cause of death is unequivocally organophosphate … a group of substances usually used in agriculture or as pesticides,” Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi told reporters, as he announced the findings of a toxicology analysis. Health officials are still waiting for the results of tests on swabs from informal township corner-shops – known as spaza shops in South Africa – in Soweto, as they try to establish where the organophosphate came from.
“Our theory, until we are proven otherwise, is that they (the shops) are using it as pesticides to kill rats … It is also being sold to communities for killing rats,” Motsoaledi said, adding that pesticide products containing organophosphate were not routinely meant to be used in people’s homes.
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