Education Minister Pledges Crackdown On Pesticide Contamination In Schools Following Fatalities

South Africa's Department of Basic Education has announced they will be taking steps to stop industrial and agricultural pesticides from entering schools, in an effort to address the recent deaths of children due to foodborne illnesses.

During a media briefing Thursday, Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube highlighted the department's responsibility to protect students, especially since many of the recent deaths have involved children of school age.

"We have done a lot of inspection in terms of the school nutrition program to figure out whether the school nutrition program has been compromised. Our findings indicate that the majority of these deaths are not linked to the school nutrition program," Gwarube said, SA News reported.

The priority was to ensure that the school nutrition program, which fed 9.7 million students daily, was not compromised. The department wanted to make sure that those handling and distributing food follow strict guidelines to ensure meals were safely provided to students every day.

Gwarube expressed confidence that the department has given clear guidance to provinces and schools. The goal was to prevent further contamination of the nutrition program, while collaborating with other ministers to do their part in maintaining safety at the school level.

Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi recognized the difficulties in addressing the continuing deaths and infections caused by foodborne illnesses, following the death of a 5-year-old boy in Diepkloof on Wednesday, which was suspected to be due to food poisoning.

When asked about the government's response to the rise in such cases, the minister said that efforts to tackle the issue were still in the early stages and would require more time.

"We are still at the beginning. It is not envisaged that we would have been able to solve this problem in a short space of time," Motsoaledi said.

Motsoaledi explained that the process of making foodborne illnesses a notifiable disease has not yet started. He mentioned that certain rules needed to be followed, and while other diseases were being made notifiable, this one was still in progress.

The president only announced it last week, saying it needed to go through amendments and regulations.