Food contamination goes beyond spaza shops

On Friday, President Ramaphosa ordered the immediate closure of all spaza shops implicated in the deaths of children, in the wake of food poisoning incidents.

At least 22 children have died in over 800 suspected food poisoning incidents countrywide.

Ramaphosa announced a raft of interventions including stricter regulations on the sale of pesticides including Terbufos.

This comes after a toxicology report confirmed the presence of the chemical organophosphate in the cause of deaths of six children in Soweto.

"It should not only be linked to spaza shops. They need to look at the people supplying food to the schools as well. It feels a bit as if the spaza shops are an easy target, " said Coetzee.

"I think it's much broader and wider than that from the medical perspective."

Coetzee said the government will have a challenge in enforcing compliance in the thousands of spaza shops and that the intervention would not be sustainable in the long run.

"To implement these restrictions, it's going to be extremely difficult. We don't have the manpower for that. It is not sustainable in the long term.

"Even if you close these spaza shops close to the school, what are we going to do if there's another outbreak or if there are other children also starting with food poisoning symptoms? I think it's a bigger problem than only spaza shops," she added.

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