By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
South Africa’s National Disaster Management Centre has declared foodborne illnesses a national disaster, in response to countrywide sicknesses and deaths, particularly of children.
A multidisciplinary team, set up to coordinate efforts to address incidents of chemical poisoning, briefed the public on Thursday.
The briefing outlined the government’s action plan to manage foodborne illnesses.
To date, 23 children have died and close to a thousand have fallen ill.
The Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Velenkosini Hlabisa, said a classification to declare a state of disaster over deaths from foodborne illnesses across the country was done on Tuesday.
The declaration was made under the Disaster Management Act, No. 57 of 2002.
Last week, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the closure of spaza shops implicated in food-borne illnesses that had claimed the lives of 22 children in recent weeks and called for all spaza shops and food handling facilities to be registered with municipalities within 21 days.
He said any shop not registered within 21 days and that did not meet all health standards would be closed.
Ramaphosa pointed out that since the beginning of September, there had been a total of 890 reported incidents of food-borne illnesses across all provinces.
Also speaking at the briefing, Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen, said it was his view that a chemical used as a pesticide, known as terbufos, did not come from the five licensed entities authorised to manufacture the product in South Africa.
The chemical was positively identified at three of the 84 spaza shops inspected in Soweto. The agricultural pesticide, which is used extensively in the citrus, maize and potato industry, is meant strictly for agricultural use.
Steenhuisen said: “If one looks at the pictures of what has been found in spaza shops, it differs quite significantly from the colour and texture of locally produced terbufos.”
He said that what also heightened the suspicion was the terbufos coming in from a neighbouring country “which is yet to be determined”.
Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, emphasised that the presence of terbufos was not only confined to spaza shops, but that it was also sold at taxi ranks, pension payout points and by street vendors.
“It’s all over so I don’t think there’s a need to target any one area.”
Commenting on the issue of whether the three spaza shops where terbufos was found would be closed, he said that legally they “must be able to tie the shop to a particular death”.
Minister of Small Business Development, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, cautioned against only singling out spaza shops for the problem.
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