A seven-year-old Brakpan girl has died from multiple organ failure, allegedly linked to a packet of chips contaminated with a deadly insecticide that was tied to a spate of food poisonings and deaths among children last year.
Azra Rahim (7) died within hours of eating the maize-based chips, with tests later revealing traces of Terbufos in her bloodstream, reports IOL.
Her aunt, Cylicia Pillay of Phoenix, said when her sister, Carmyn Pillay, had fetched Azra from school she was already eating the chips, and they were unsure where she had got them from.
“Her mother had packed her a snack of mini cheddar biscuits. She knew when Azra ate her snack, because she always left the empty wrapper in her lunchbox. But on this day, there was no wrapper in her lunchbox,” said her aunt.
“She had no allowance, so she could not have bought the chips. But the cheddar biscuits were gone. We have assumed she swopped her snack with one of her friends and that’s how she got them.”
She said Azra had not eaten dinner that night, and complained of feeling sick.
“Then she told her mother she could not see anything, and was feeling dizzy and felt faint.”
Azra subsequently lost consciousness and her parents took her to Dalview Life Hospital, where doctors tried to resuscitate her for 20 minutes before she died.
The matter is being investigated by Brakpan police.
IOL article – Girl, 7, dies after eating chips contaminated with a deadly insecticide (Open access)
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