A mother and her four children from Lugari Station in Lugari Constituency, Kakamega County, have been admitted to hospital after eating githeri (posho) suspected to have been poisonous.
The five including two girls and two boys, were rushed to a health facility at Lugari Station today morning after they started to vomit and diarrhea, signs related to food poisoning.
According to Ali Hassan, a neighbor who rushed the family to the Lugari Station Hospital while they were in a critical condition, the five left the food in the kitchen without locking it and left for church on Sunday morning.
He said they did not lock the door because they had left the lastborn behind to make it easy for the child to access food while they were away.
“The came back from church in the afternoon and ate the food for lunch. At around 8 pm, they started to vomit and diarrhea, which went on for the whole night,” he said
Mr. Hassan was called to attention by the woman’s friend who requested him to rush them to hospital on Monday morning.
The mother, Eglay Ongachi, couldn’t speak and was overtaken by the illness.
“I made two trips on a motorbike as I rushed them to hospital. The woman’s husband, who works in Eldoret, is taking care of the hospital bill,” he said.
What did the hospital find out?
The medic in charge at Lugari Station Hospital, Ignitius Wekesa Nyongesa, diagnosed all the five and found out that they might have eaten poisoned food, although he could not determine the kind of food poisoning.
“So far so good, they are stabilizing. They were presented with severe diarrhea and vomiting but as we talk it has stopped. Sometimes it is hard to determine a poison without direct reference. We’ve notified the public health team to pick up from there” he said.
The medic said the five will be attended to as outpatients after being discharged.
Sam Oduor is the founder and one of the editors at WKT. With a strong background in Communication and Journalism, Sam is an experienced digital media expert currently building a team of young professionals dedicated to telling the story of our community in a unique, authentic way.
