Thirty students from Ajumako Afransi Technical and Vocational Institute have been hospitalized due to suspected food poisoning.
They reported stomach discomfort after consuming a meal and were promptly taken to Ajumako Baah Salvation Army Polyclinic.
The incident occurred during lunchtime on Tuesday, June 11, 2024, after some students ate waakye and stew.
Currently, some of the affected students are receiving treatment at Ajumako Baah Salvation Army Polyclinic, while others are being attended to at Ajumako District Government Hospital.
In an interview with Adom News, Physician Assistant Daniel Agyeakpor stated that the majority of the students are in stable condition and are awaiting lab results to identify the cause of their illness.
More than 40 toddlers in South Africa were hospitalized on Monday after mistakenly ingesting rat poison, which they thought was candy.
Regional health authorities in Gauteng reported that upon medical examination, 17 toddlers were admitted for overnight observation, while the remaining 24 were discharged in satisfactory condition.
Additionally, a group of 10 individuals, including eight children, were referred to a different hospital in the same province on the same day.
Health officials have noted an alarming increase in food poisoning cases, with a total of 863 incidents reported since last October.
They are advising parents and guardians to be more vigilant in protecting children and recommend that anyone experiencing symptoms of food poisoning, such as nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, and stomach aches, seek immediate medical attention at the
A report by a pathologist on the late Member of Parliament for Ejisu, John Ampontuah Kumah, has confirmed that he died of natural causes, Ghanaweb reports in an article.
Following the death of the Deputy Minister for Finance on Thursday, March 7, 2024, multiple reports attributed his death to poisoning.
The autopsy, which Ghanaweb says it has intercepted and was conducted at the Police Hospital in Accra, also ruled out the presence of any harmful chemicals, such as poison, in his system.
“Blood and urine samples tested for alcohol, common drugs, and poisons were negative,” Ghanaweb quoted a part of the toxicology section of the report to have said.
It was earlier reported that the late Ejisu MP suffered from multiple myeloma, which is a type of blood cancer for which he was undergoing treatment.
Details of the autopsy addressed to the Coroner at the Kaneshie District Magistrate Court and dated Monday, March 11, 2024, determined the cause of his death to be due to “congestive heart failure,” “severe anaemia,” and “underlying multiple myeloma.”
According to a family source, the report was officially presented to the family on Tuesday, March 12, 2024, and they are studying it while arrangements are being made to obtain the death certificate.
GhanaWeb reports that the late John Kumah was undergoing treatment at the University Hospital of Erlangen in Germany for his condition, which at one point led to a fracture in his left arm.
According to the source, the MP was scheduled to begin active treatment in Germany on March 12, 2024, but was discharged against the doctor’s advice so he could attend the Independence Day celebrations on March 6, 2024, before returning for treatment.
Following a deterioration in his condition, the MP was being transported from Kumasi to Accra when he died en route.
The said report, cited by Ghanaweb, is yet to be made available to the public.
The Suhum Divisional Police Command has apprehended a 22-year-old man named Akoko from Suhum in the Eastern Region. He is suspected of poisoning his 17-year-old pregnant girlfriend, Matilda Dankwa.
Matilda Dankwa had recently completed her Junior High School (JHS) education and was awaiting her Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) results.
According to reports, Akoko, who works as a motorcycle taxi (okada) rider in the same village, was in a romantic relationship with Matilda and was also the father of her unborn child.
Their relationship took a troubling turn when Akoko allegedly pressured Matilda to terminate her pregnancy, but she refused to do so.
Jesse Amankwah, a reporter for Despite Media in the Eastern Region, provided details of the incident during an interview on Okay FM on September 27, 2023.
Amankwah explained that Matilda declined Akoko’s request to have an abortion, informing him that if he did not wish to take responsibility for the child, her parents would offer support instead.
He recounted how Akoko allegedly lured Matilda to his place with the help of a friend before supposedly giving her food that was believed to have caused her to lose her baby and ultimately led to her demise.
“Matilda was pregnant while taking her BECE exams, and it was during this period that Akoko confronted her about terminating the pregnancy.
When the said friend brought her to his place, “it is alleged that Akoko, who wanted to terminate the pregnancy, poisoned Matilda’s food. So, as I speak Matilda is dead.
“The Suhum police commander has informed me that the guy was on a run but he has been arrested this morning and is assisting with investigations,” he added.
South Africa’s Zulu King Misuzulu kaZwelithini, has refuted reports that he was poisoned, insisting in a video that he was in good condition.
It comes amid contradictory worries after the Zulu traditional prime minister announced over the weekend that the king was being hospitalized for possible poisoning in neighboring Eswatini.
According to Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the King was in hospital after the untimely death of one of his senior aides, who died of suspected poisoning. But the king’s official spokesman, says he is in “perfect health.”
However, in the video released to South African media, the monarch stated that he was due to go for his regular medical check-ups, which he chose to undertake in Eswatini.
“[It’s] not because I have been poisoned, I am not poisoned. I am well. I feel 100%.
“I’m happy, everything is well functioning, there is no poison whatsoever. So please people, mostly to the Zulu people, the Zulu royal family also to remind everyone to please don’t listen to everything that people say,” he said.
King Misuzulu is also quoted as telling the AFP news agency over the phone from Eswatini that he was “very fit and sound.”
The 48-year-old monarch succeeded to the throne last year after his father, monarch Goodwill Zwelithini, died in a royal succession dispute.
It has come to light that a Russian opposition politician who spoke out against the conflict in Ukraine was poisoned with a highly toxic substance.
An outspoken Kremlin critic, Elvira Vikhareva, 32, revealed tests showing she had potassium dichromate in her blood to Russia’s Sota news channel.
Miss Vikhareva claimed that she started experiencing symptoms of being ill in November of last year, including hair loss, muscle spasms, and severe stomach pains that persisted until February 2023.
It comes after a number of Moscow’s detractors have been poisoned in recent years, most notably Alexei Navalny, the de facto opposition leader of Russia, who nearly died in August 2020 after FSB agents smeared novichock on his pants.
She told TV Rain she had not appealed to police for help as it was clear anyone in Russia who took an ‘anti-war position’ quickly became ‘enemy number one’.
Miss Vikhareva said: ‘When the test results came back the only phrase that was heard was: “How did you survive?”
‘I don’t have any assumptions but if a person has an anti-war position and is in Russia, and can express their thoughts clearly about what is going on in Russia and Ukraine, then they are enemy number one.’
She said she didn’t appeal to police for help as that would be like going to a ‘bloody executioner’.
‘I survived and I want my survival to aggrieve those who were responsible,’ she added.
Potassium dichromate, a compound used in wood treatment and photography, can damage organs and cause cancer, infertility and breathing difficulties. It is harmful when in contact with the skin.
Miss Vikhareva hosts regular political shows on YouTube, which can still be accessed in Russia, but stopped showing her face on camera because the poisoning had taken its ‘toll on her looks’.
She said on social media her body began to ‘give up’ and she had to have constant visits from doctors.
But she has since recovered despite the poisoning leaving her with shaking hands, eyelashes that fall out and nails that ‘look like they’ve been run over by a train’.
Miss Vikhareva – who worked on election campaigns for Dmitry Gudkov, an exiled opposition politician – ran for the Duma in 2021 but lost to a pro-Kremlin candidate amid widespread accusations of vote rigging.
The Kremlin has a history of accusations against it for poisoning its opponents and exiled dissidents.
Bellingcat, a group of investigative journalists, uncovered evidence which alleged Russian agents had poisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Mr Navalny was rushed to a German hospital on an aeroplane after he fell ill on a domestic Russian flight in August 2020.
He recovered and returned to Russia where he was sentenced and convicted on fraud on contempt of court charges which he described as ‘politically motivated’.
Former KGB agent turned opposition activist Alexander Litvinenko died after he was poisoned with polonium-210 in London in 2006.
In 2021, the European Court of Human Rights found the Kremlin responsible for Mr Litvinenko’s death.
A UK public inquiry also found he was killed in an operation by Russia’s Federal Security Service which was ‘probably’ approved by Putin.
The Kremlin has always denied any involvement in Mr Litvinenko’s death.
Two sisters from Mpumalanga allegedly attempted to poison their 62-year-old mother a few days before she was killed and raped, reportedly to collect an R80 000 life insurance payout.
Mpumalanga police are investigating a murder case in which it is alleged that the woman’s daughters killed her to cash in on her life insurance. Two male accomplices also allegedly gang-raped the woman, News24 reported on Thursday.
The daughters, aged 30 and 39, have been arrested, according to provincial police spokesperson Brigadier Leonard Hlathi.
EWN reported that Hlathi said the sisters allegedly tried to kill their mother just two days before she was murdered, but failed.
“A substance was poured in her liquor that she was drinking, by one of her children. When she came back from the loo, she found her drink was mixed with a chemical and did not continue drinking,” Hlathi told EWN.
The younger sister appeared in the Barberton Magistrate’s Court on a murder charge on Wednesday, and the case was postponed to February 5.
According to Hlathi, the younger sister invited her mother for a visit on January 6.
“Information indicates that [she] organised her 41-year-old boyfriend, as well as two other male friends and then waited for her mother to arrive. When [the mother] eventually arrived… she was allegedly kidnapped, assaulted, senselessly gang-raped by the two male friends while [the younger sister] and her friend were holding her.”
The mother’s body was dumped on the side of a road in Barberton, apparently to make her death look like an accident. After the body was discovered, a case was opened and an investigation ensued.
Well planned
“The police investigation revealed that [the] death was well planned,” Hlathi said.
It later surfaced that in November 2019, the friend of one of the siblings allegedly took out a life insurance policy in the mother’s name to the tune of R40 000. In the case of an unnatural death, such as an accident, the policy would pay out double.
Sowetan reported that the friend allegedly obtained the mother’s documents from the two sisters and took out the policy.
The police reportedly instructed the insurance company to stop the payment.
Police suspect the two sisters conspired to have their mother murdered for the insurance money and have launched a manhunt for the remaining suspects, according to Hlathi.
“I’ve been in the police for 30 years, I have never heard of a horrific incident like this,” Hlathi told EWN.
