Health minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi’s recent announcement on the cause of the deaths of several Soweto children has brought renewed focus on two toxic and dangerous pesticides, one banned and the other used in agriculture, and their accessibility to the general market.
Toxicologist Dr Gerhard Verdoorn has warned people against using some of the toxic products, usually in homes, as pesticides.
Verdoorn said Aldicarb, which is commonly known as ‘ga le phirimi’ or Twostep, is easily available and lethal.
Verdoorn said Terbufos cases were nothing new, citing previous cases he assisted with involving the deadly substance.
One was in Gqeberha, where three children died after eating Howe Instant Noodles in 2021.
Siblings Olwam Ngwendu, seven, and Athenkosi, six months old, and their cousin Sinothando, 11, of Wells Estate, Gqeberha, suffered from convulsions, vomiting and frothing at the mouth and later died after allegedly eating two packets of noodles.
Subsequently, children from Mpumalanga and Limpopo were also reported to have died after eating noodles.
Terbufos was responsible for more than half the deaths of children from acute pesticide poisoning in Cape Town’s western metropole from 2010 to 2019, according to a study co-authored by Prof Andrea Rother, head of the environmental health division at the University of Cape Town’s school of public health, that was published in BMC Public Health last year, according to BusinessLIVE.
While the manufacturer of the product said the children’s deaths were linked to another agricultural insecticide, Termifos, Verdoorn pinned it down to Terbufos.
Khanyisile Ngcobo
www.timeslive.co.za
