A child dies in her fathers arms

A girl child, Refilwe Usman (6), who was in grade 01 at Mandlethu Primary School in Tsakane, East of Ekurhuleni at Brakpan, died last Tuesday, 6th of February, inside the school premises. It is alleged that Refilwe endured long, excruciating pains, vomited non-stop, and shook feverously after consuming All-Star biscuits her father, Lucky Mkhwanazi, bought for her from the local spaza shop owned by William Sumamo, a foreign national operating his business in the area. Mkhwanazi says this was the first instance where he bought her refreshments to take to school, instead of giving her pocket money, and now she is dead.

“My daughter died in my arms while waiting for the paramedics. I kept encouraging her to hold on for the ambulance to take her to the hospital, but eventually, she stopped moving her fingers,” says Mkhwanazi, devastated and numb. He says the call from the school notifying him that Refilwe is sick came around 11 a.m. The first sight he saw upon arriving at the school was how weak and perishing she was, her mouth full of foam from the effects of the illness caused by the biscuits he gave her. Refilwe endured the excruciating pain until at 12:30, when the ambulance arrived and certified her dead.

This incident prompted the Department of Education in Gauteng to deploy its Psycho-Social Support Unit to the school to provide counseling to learners, and everyone affected or traumatized by it. MEC of Education in Gauteng, Matome Chiloane, says they are deeply saddened by this unfortunate incident as the department.

“We call upon law enforcement agencies, and municipalities to be more stringent on compliance matters related to spaza shop products,” says the MEC extending their condolences as the department to the family.

The statement from the Gauteng Department of Health issued on the 7th of February stated that 4 more kids are recovering in Pholosong Regional Hospital after being admitted with complications for allegedly having consumed the same biscuits that killed Refilwe. The hospital stated that it has collected blood and urine samples from these 4 surviving pupils to determine if there are any contaminants or other factors that may have contributed to this incident. Even food samples such as biscuits have been collected from the suspected shop to undergo laboratory investigation to see if there could be a link to this unfortunate incident.

The Department of Health in Gauteng also stated that since October last year, the number of kids who have died because of food poisoning at schools has now risen to 11 unfortunate deaths out of 861 accumulated foodborne incidences that the department has experienced until now. Some of these deaths are as a result of having bought expired food from local shops, others from food being served to children by school feeding schemes.

Even though Sumamo acknowledges having sold Mkhwanazi the biscuits, he does not accept recklessness in his business for allegedly selling poisonous food to the community. He says all items sold in his shop have contacts of the packaging where customers can call and complain. He added that only the postmortem results would confirm if the child died of the biscuits bought from him. But the community led by school kids has forced his shop and that of some foreign nationals in the area to close solely accusing them of selling expired goods and killing the community.

Soon the Department of Health will release the results confirming if the biscuits the kids ate were contaminated or not.