SA’s key government structure responsible for state security is treating a surge in apparent food-borne illness and death as a potential threat to national security, the health department says.
The National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure (Natjoints) has asked the health department to co-ordinate investigations by various institutions, including the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), which previously traced the cause of SA’s worst listeriosis outbreak to a factory owned by Tiger Brands.
Dozens of schoolchildren have fallen seriously ill, in some cases fatally, in a series of separate incidents that appear to be food related. These include the deaths earlier in October of six children in Naledi, Soweto, who fell ill after eating apparently contaminated chips; the hospitalisation of 74 grade 12 pupils on the West Rand after apparent food poisoning; and 25 cases of suspected food poisoning among primary schoolchildren in Bronkhorstspruit.
Health minister Aaron Motsoaledi convened a meeting last week with representatives from the NICD, SAPS, the agriculture department, the National Consumer Commission (NCC), the health department and the metros of Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni.
“At the end of careful analysis, the teams came to the conclusion that we are dealing with a chemical agent and that this must be identified as a matter of urgency,” the health department said in a statement.
An intensive investigation led by the NICD is expected to begin in Naledi, Soweto, on Monday. It will include teams selected from the SAPS, the department of agriculture, the NCC and 80 environmental health inspectors from the national health department and the City of Johannesburg.
Environmental health practitioners are at the forefront of routine inspections of food establishments, but they are in short supply. In response to questions posed in parliament last year by the DA’s Madeleine Hicklin, then health minister Joe Phaahla said SA was far from the national environmental Health Policy goal of having one environmental health practitioner for every 10,000 people.
SA should ideally have had just more than 6,200 environmental health practitioners, but there were just 1,712 employed by the provinces, or barely a quarter of what was required, he said in December.
Update: October 21 2024
This story has been updated with additional information.
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