The past few weeks has seen at least 22 South African children tragically lose their lives due to food-borne illnesses, while hundreds have fallen ill after eating food purchased from street vendors and spaza shops.
These tragedies prompted President Cyril Ramaphosa to address the nation on Friday evening, where he warned that spaza shops around the country had three weeks to register with the necessary government channels or face closure.
The President said the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) had linked several of the deaths to banned pesticides, which were commonly sold by street vendors and hawkers to control rat infestations.
“Often, the poorest communities are the worst affected, and often the cheapest remedies that are used are these highly hazardous substances like Terbufos and Aldicarb,” Ramaphosa said.
Following the recent incidents of food poisoning and contamination, the South African Police Service has issued the following safety tips for consumers to take note of.
In addition to avoidance of items that may be contaminated, it is also important for South Africans to brush up on general food safety guidelines:
- Avoid buying and consuming food without labels
- Never buy cans or glass jars with dents, cracks, or bulging lids
- Do not buy food when wrappers or containers are open or damaged
- Do not use food beyond its expiry date
- Check expiration dates on food labels
- Don’t eat food that is past it “use by” date
- Don’t reuse water used for washing utensils, food or hands
- Shop owners should reduce the time that food is displayed and keep it protected from dust and out of consumers reach
- Food preparation areas should be clean and hygienic
- Food waste must be removed from the food preparation areas as soon as possible
- Design measures to prevent pests from contaminating food both in storage and in preparation
- Protect kitchen areas and food from insects, pests, rats, and other animals
- Cook food thoroughly, especially meat, poultry, eggs and seafood
- Reheat cooked food thoroughly
- Do not leave cooked food at room temperature for more than two hours
- Refrigerate promptly all cooked and perishable food
- Do not store food for too long, even in the refrigerator
- Do not thaw frozen food at room temperature
