The government of Sokoto State, North-west Nigeria, has said it has ordered investigations into the death of seven members of a family in a rural community in the state. The state’s Ministry of Health said the deceased had reportedly died after eating meals made from cassava. The government said samples of the meal, cooking utensils and ingredients have been collected and sent to the state’s office of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) for onward transfer of the items to the regulatory agency’s laboratory in Kaduna state for testing.
The state’s Epidemiologist, Nuhu Dogodaji, disclosed this to PREMIUM TIMES over the telephone on Monday. Mr Dogodaji said the ministry also took blood samples of members of the household who ate the meal but did not experience food poisoning and will be transferring them to the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). “We have collected all the samples we need to run a test.
We took blood samples from family members who were alive. Took a piece of the soup, which was already dry by the time we did. We took the pot and the spoon.
We also went to a farm where they plucked the leaves and took some for the test,” he said. PREMIUM TIMES learnt that the family suffered food poisoning after eating Dambu and Lalo, a local cuisine made from cassava and vegetables, for dinner. PREMIUM TIMES delivers fact-based journalism for Nigerians, by Nigerians — and our community of supporters, the readers who do.