Following the deaths of multiple children as a result of exposure to hazardous chemicals, Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube has announced measures to ban the use of pesticides in schools.
At least six children in Soweto died after eating snacks bought from a nearby spaza shop, and the insecticide Terbufos was implicated in their deaths.
Despite the fact that the chemical was found in their bodies, it is still unknown how exactly they were exposed to this extremely harmful material.
Gwarube said that their priority was ensuring that the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) was not compromised. She also revealed that some of the deaths were not from the NSNP.
"We have done a lot of inspection in terms of NSNP to figure out whether or not that school nutrition has been compromised. And we have found that a lot of the cases where children have died did not emanate from the programme," she said.
The national government announced on Thursday morning that food-borne illnesses had been designated as a National Disaster under the National Disaster Act by the National Disaster Management Centre.
In the past few months, at least 23 children nationwide have died as a result of consuming tainted food from their neighbourhood spaza stores.
Terbufos, a pesticide, is blamed for the death of some of the children. The substance was being used for rat control in nearby spaza establishments and homes, according to health reports.
The education minister made the remarks during a media briefing, stressing the importance of health safety of learners in schools.
During the briefing in Pretoria, Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen announced that according to laboratory tests, the Terbufos was not produced locally.
Gwarube underlined how crucial it is to keep the lethal substance out of schools.
"I will be gazetting and moving to ban the use of insecticides and pesticides on school premises.
“As Minister Steenhuisen said, these kinds of pesticides are for industrial and agricultural use. There is no reason for them to be on the premises of our schools," she said.
According to Gwarube, she has been discussing ways to protect feeding programmes from harmful chemicals with other provincial education departments.
''The priority is to make sure that the school nutrition programme which feeds 9.7 million learners every single day, is protected from being compromised because we want to make sure that those who are food handlers and distributors of the school nutrition programme are adhering to very strict guidelines."
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