Child dies after eating suspected poisoned pork

An eight-year-old child has died while six other people have been admitted to Embangweni mission hospital in Mzimba for eating suspected poisoned pork meat.

Hospital director Kondwani Zgambo said the other five have since been discharged, saying only one remains in hospital.

He said all the patients were from one family.

Zgambo said efforts to take samples from the pork meat failed because the communities threw the meat in a pit latrine after the death of the child.

He however said the hospital has taken some samples from the stools of the patients for tests to establish the cause of the contamination.

Meat eating is banned in the area because of the outbreak of African Swine Fever, a pig disease.