No toxic maize related death recorded – expert
By Esther Chisola
MINISTRY of Health director for clinical care and diagnostics has told a court that the ministry did not receive any record of any Zambian who had died from consuming maize contaminated with aflatoxin.
Dr Lisulo Walubita was testifying in a case in which Patriotic Front (PF) secretary general Raphael Nakacinda is facing a charge of seditious practices.
Nakacinda is alleged to have accused the United Party for National Development (UPND) government of committing genocide in a statement he made on August 21, 2024, published on the Millennium Radio Facebook page.
According to the charge sheet, he alleged that the government was distributing mealie-meal and maize contaminated with aflatoxins, which he claimed had caused the deaths of dogs and some citizens.
And in one of Nakacinda’s seditious cases before chief resident magistrate, he is alleged to have on September 26, 2024 in Lusaka, using Kanele 97.7 FM Facebook page, uttered seditious words, stating that “The republican President of Zambia gave directives to the Drug Enforcement Commission, Anti-Corruption Commission and the Zambia Police Service to raid and search the house of former president Edgar Lungu with a view to divert attention on the eligibility case that was before the Constitutional Court of Zambia.
This was seen as intended to raise discontent or disaffection among the people of Zambia.
When the matter came up for continued trial before magistrate Mwandu Sakala, Dr Walubita testified that some time last year in August, two officers came to his office asking him whether the ministry had received any reports of death relating to the consumption of maize contaminated with aflatoxin.
“They proceeded to ask me what the human symptoms could be. I explained that if a human being consumes food contaminated with aflatoxin they can present with nausea, vomiting abdominal, pain or other signs of liver failure or liver cancer. They asked if every person who has eaten food containing aflatoxin would development all the above symptoms. I said ‘no, they can only develop the symptoms if they have health issues,” he said.
“Animals can’t tolerate, they die from consuming low quantities. They asked me if I was aware of the video circulating online and I said ‘no I haven’t been active’. They then proceeded to play a video that I saw for the first time. It alleged that there are people who had died from eating maize contaminated with aflatoxin,” Dr Walubita said.
He said after watching the video, he insisted that there was no such report recorded at the ministry.
Magistrate Sakala adjourned to the case to September 30 for cross-examination.
