Nigeria’s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) ha prohibido la venta y el suministro de 30 productos agroquímicos, según la organización con sede en Nigeria Noticias de vanguardia Servicio.
La directora general de NAFDAC, Dora Akunyili, dijo que la prohibición se hizo necesaria cuando se descubrió que los pesticidas estaban causando intoxicación alimentaria que había provocado múltiples muertes después de que los consumidores consumieran cultivos alimentarios con altos niveles de sustancias químicas.
“We got report that many people in Bekwarra LGA of Cross River State suffered from food poisoning due to ingestion of moi-moi and beans. A total of 112 people were hospitalised and the deaths of two children were recorded,” Akuntili said.
“The moi-moi and beans from the homes of the victims and from open markets in Taraba and Benue states were collected for laboratory analysis. The laboratory report revealed outrageously high levels of organophosphates, carbamates, fenithrothion, and chloropyrifos, that are highly toxic pesticides,” she continued.
“We got another report that over 120 students of Government Girls Secondary School, Doma, Gombe were rushed to Gombe Specialist Hospital after consuming a meal of beans suspected to have been preserved with poisonous chemicals,” she said. “Samples were again taken to our laboratory and it was discovered that the foodstuffs contained outrageously high levels of lindane, an organochlorinated pesticide commonly called Gammallin that affects the nervous system, producing a range of symptoms from nausea, vomiting, headaches, dizziness to seizure, convulsion, and death.”
Después de estos trágicos incidentes, NAFDAC dijo que los nigerianos deben dejar de usar agroquímicos que no estén aprobados por la agencia y deben desistir de la peligrosa práctica de usar Gammallin para capturar peces.
Algunos de los pesticidas prohibidos son aldrin, binapacryl, captafol, clordano, clordimeform, DDT, dieldrin, dinoseb, dicloruro de etileno, heptaclor, lindano, paratión, fosfamidón, monocroptophos, metamidofos, clorobencilato, toxafeno, endosulfán, óxido de etileno.