At least 25 people over the weekend were hospitalized at Agou in the Nkwanta South Municipality of the Oti Region after an alleged food poisoning at a funeral.
The victims who were members of a cultural dance group that performed at the funeral reportedly getting poisoned after eating food suspected to have been poisoned by an unknown person.
Some of the victims, namely; Salisu Yaya and Wabgee Anna, said they suspect a woman who was close to the cooking area poisoned the food. They said she looked very suspicious among the cooks.
According to Salisu, “At every event, we are served food before we begin our performance because we may not have time to eat afterward. When we arrived at this funeral, we were served some meat and local drinks. We ate before we performed. Later, one of my friends complained of stomach ache and another complained of diarrhea.
He explained that “Those of us who ate also started experiencing diarrhea and stomach ache. We were rushed to the hospital. The doctors told us we ate food that had been poisoned’’.
The Medical Superintendent at the Nkwanta South Municipal Hospital, Dr. Amoatey, said the victims are responding to treatment, adding that a medical team has been deployed to the community to investigate the incident.
-BY Daniel Bampoe