What you need to know about the Naledi food poisoning

Health minister Aaron Motsoaledi says the packet of chips found in the pocket of one of the Naledi kids who died of suspected poisoning did not contain organophosphate which killed them.

Five of the six children died on October 6 while the last child died five days later.

Motsoaledi told a press conference on Monday morning, 22 days after the incident that: 

• Lab results are yet to reveal if any organophosphate was in the spaza shop where the kids bought the snack.
• If organophosphate, the substance that killed the children, is found in the swabs taken at the spaza shops, the owners will be charged.
• Children are more susceptible to being sick or dying from poison because of their body mass and more vulnerable immune system.
• Eighty health inspectors were deployed at 84 spaza shops in search of the evidence of a chemical that officials and the community believed was responsible for the illnesses and fatalities that befell the country, especially in Soweto.
• Four people were arrested at a mall in Johannesburg because they were found trading in a chemical called Aldicarb. Their arrest came after some shop owners in Naledi confirmed to had bought some of the chemicals from the four individuals. They were released on warning and paid an R2,000 admission of guilt. They were released because they are not the manufacturers of the chemical.
• All the samples taken via swabs in the various spaza shops in Soweto have been sent to the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS), and the government is still waiting for the results.
•  Organophosphate (Halephirimi) is not meant to be used in domestic settings. This is because the behaviour of children is such that anything they touch, is hand-to-mouth.

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