HEALTH inspectors have collected the samples of Zambeef and Capital Fisheries products imported from Ireland in United Kingdom (UK) and taken them from Katima Mulilo Border in Sesheke to the national Food and Drug laboratories in Lusaka for examination.
Two Zambeef trucks were carrying imported kidneys while 15 Capital Fisheries were carrying tilapia fish.
Both Sesheke District Council secretary Given Muleya and Southern Province chief public health inspector Emmanuel Kooma confirmed in separate interviews yesterday.
Mr Muleya said the samples would be examined within 48 hours and results would be known by Wednesday this week.
He said the trucks in question were not impounded but that the scrutiny was part of normal or routine health inspections.
“For now, the trucks will remain at the border as they wait for the results from the samples after which they will be cleared.
If the results show that the products contain aromatic aldehyde, a chemical used to embalm dead human bodies, then the products will be destroyed,” Mr Muleya said.
And in a separate interview, Dr Kooma said the samples were taken to Lusaka because health inspectors were suspecting that the products contained aromatic aldehyde.
Dr Kooma, who was at the scene in Sesheke yesterday, however said the issue involving Capital Fisheries imported products was a normal health inspection.
Now we have seen that Health Inspectors are very important. This is one department that is highly neglected in terms of funding by the Ministry of Health and even by the councils.
Fuseki (Forsake)!!!
Cooking food at high temperatures, for example grilling or barbecuing meats, can lead to the formation of minute quantities of many potent carcinogens that are comparable to those found in cigarette smoke (i.e., benzo[a]pyrene).
Does it mean from now onwards you boys will stop eating michopo? No please be well informed. Formaldehyde is everywhere in the environment, what matter is how high it is.
Zambian authorities are doing their work in line with requirements for healthy dietary needs. It does not mean that if people can afford to buy meat, therefore they are consuming meat without side effects. Zambia is showing its committment to keeping its citizens healthy and productive because sick citizens cannot grow the economy. It is evident that a well established exporter and importer (ZAMBEEF) of meat products is involved in unscrupulous business acts such as this latest deadly act. The Zambian government should not recognise tests conducted by international independent testing agencies such as those in South Africa or Germany. The reason is that such agencies are not definitely independent because they have vested interests in the sales of ZAMBEEF imported hamful products.
That’s ridiculous to say that European testing bodies cannot be trusted because they have vested interests. These agencies have ZERO financial interests in companies like Zambeef. They are as important to them as a speck of dust. They have their reputations to think about.
If I were Zambeef I would also want it tasted abroad as local officials can easily be bribed in Zambia.
The whole thing seems like a smear against Zambeef.
#Spoon & folk
You are certainly fulfilling your role of being confined in a boxed approach, and you unarguably take whatever whites prescribe to you as acceptable standards of testing for granted. The absence of the element of critiquing the authenticity of whatever a white person arranges as acceptable norm/rule is what relagates you and your sorts to mediocrity. You cannot achieve meritocracy by simply agreeing to anything simply because the person who argues against a predominantly black organisation/government’assertions happens to be ‘white’ or located in Europe or USA. You must give/provide us with sound well explored/researched educational arguments not prescribed insults designed to serve interests of beneficiaries of proceeds of harmful beef products. Unwax yourself.
i cant agree more to you sentiment BOOM & WHATEVER
Fair enough… But what of samples of meat to new Soweto market which is seated to the ntemba minus a fridge… Or the numerous ntemba’s offering ‘fresh’goat meat? This is a joke