Tag Archives: nigeria

Fish-linked botulism in Nigeria

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I’ve chronicled my fear of botulism many times before. I still can stuff, but I really pay attention to what I’m doing.

Dried fish and botulism seem to go together. Five bot cases in Germany and Spain were linked to dried fish in 2016.

There were 90 illnesses and nine deaths in 2017 from foodborne botulism in Ukraine. That’s a lot. Fish were a factor in many of these illnesses.

According to Outbreak News Daily, two unlucky Nigerians have died from botulism after consuming fish.

Three family members contracted suspected foodborne botulism, resulting in the deaths of the father and mother, according to the  the Nigerian Centres for Disease Control (NCDC). Fish appears to be the common food source.

The event descriptions of the two fatalities is provided by the World Health Organization (WHO):

The woman, a 47 year-old, presented to King’s Care Hospital, Abuja, on 7 January 2018, with vomiting, fever, sudden blurring of vision, generalized body weakness, dysphagia and odynophagia, and left ptosis. She was semi-conscious. She was initially diagnosed with ischaemic heart disease, with esophageal stricture and central retinal vein thrombosis. However, her neurological symptoms worsened rapidly, progressing to complete bilateral ptosis, paralysis of her respiratory muscles, and respiratory failure. She was referred approximately 24 hours after admission and died in transit.

Her 49 year-old husband presented to the same hospital with nausea, dizziness, vomiting, progressive dysarthria, odynophagia and partial ptosis. He was transferred to Zenith Medical and Kidney Centre, where his symptoms worsened. He suffered progressive respiratory failure, which required a tracheostomy and ventilation, and died on 15 January 2018.

Their 15-year-old daughter also developed symptoms and was hospitalized as of last week.

All three cases had eaten fish at home in the previous 24 hours. Two further children, who stayed in the same house, are currently in Lagos and are being monitored remotely. A third child is in Karu, but monitoring has been hampered by uncooperative relatives.

 

Food fraud ‘Plastic rice’ seized in Nigeria

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Martin Patience of BBC News reports Nigeria has confiscated 2.5 tonnes of “plastic rice” smuggled into the country by unscrupulous businessmen, the customs service says.

plastic-riceLagos customs chief Haruna Mamudu said the fake rice was intended to be sold in markets during the festive season.

He said the rice was very sticky after it was boiled and “only God knows what would have happened” if people ate it.

It is not clear where the seized sacks came from but rice made from plastic pellets was found in China last year.

Rice is the most popular staple food in Nigeria.

The BBC’s Peter Okwoche says it is the only foodstuff that crosses cultural and ethnic lines across the country.

Whoever made this fake rice did an exceptionally good job – on first impression it would have fooled me. When I ran the grains through my fingers nothing felt out of the ordinary.

But when I smelt a handful of the “rice” there was a faint chemical odour. Customs officials say when they cooked up the rice it was too sticky – and it was then abundantly clear this was no ordinary batch.

They’ve sent a sample to the laboratories to determine exactly what the “rice” is made of.

They are also warning the public not to consume the mystery foodstuff as it could be dangerous.

Fake food scandals are thankfully rare in Nigeria when you compare it to countries such as China.

The big scandal here is fake pharmaceutical drugs that kill a huge number of people every year.

A total of 102 sacks, each containing 25kg (55lb), was seized.

Mr Mamudu did not explain how the plastic rice was made but said it had been branded as “Best Tomato Rice.”

13 dead, 10 sick from C. perfringens in Nigeria

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On Feb. 27, 2016, Dr Rilwanu Muhammad, the Executive Secretary, of the Federal Capital Territory Primary Health Care Development Board in Nigeria said that 13 people died, while 10 people survived food poisoning caused by Clostridium perfringens in Abuja.

africa0027-e1407965162944The board took blood samples from infected persons and water from the well and the 3 bore holes in the community for clinical diagnosis at the laboratory of Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). Muhammad called on community administration to provide safe and clean water for the community. He also called on the community to enhance personal hygiene, especially hand washing, adding that C. perfringens infection could be traced in the stool of the affected person.

2 human heads ‘many cell phones’ seized from Nigerian restaurant

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The Gawker reports that according to Nigerian tabloid the Osun Defender, a restaurant in Anambra, Nigeria was raided by police on Thursday when they were tipped off about their cannibal menu.

Among the items that were found in the raid were two cellophaned human heads, two head-mainAK-47 rifles, two army caps, forty rounds of live ammunition, and “so many cell phones.”

A local pastor gave a statement regarding his potential ingestion of human flesh, saying “I did not know it was human meat that I ate at such [an] expensive price.”

Police have arrested 11 people connected with the restaurant and it has since been shut down.

Nigeria intercepts chickens stuffed with $150,000 worth of cocaine

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I make an OK stuffed chicken but it may be more crowd-pleasing with $150,000 worth of cocaine inside.

Nigerian authorities say a mechanic who struggled in Brazil for more than six years had hoped the drugs would buy him a life of luxury in his native land.

“This was like a retirement plan for him,” said Mitchell Ofoyeju, spokesman for the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency.

The accused was arrested over the weekend at the airport in Lagos after he came in from Sao Paolo with 2.6 kilograms of cocaine, Ofoyeju said. Photos from the agency showed egg-shaped packages wrapped in gold aluminum foil and tucked into the browned chickens.

Authorities have found drugs sandwiched inside the fabric of suitcases, sewn into wigs worn by female passengers, tucked into underwear or hidden in phone chargers and even in a stethoscope, Ofoyeju said.