Eight children and one adult dead and another 78 people hospitalized after eating sea turtle meat on Zanzibar's Pemba island

Ap Zanzibar (Tanzania)

Zanzibar (Tanzania)

Updated Sunday, March 10, 2024-00:13

Eight children and one adult have died after eating sea turtle meat on the

island of Pemba

in the Zanzibar archipelago, and another

78 people have been hospitalized,

authorities said Saturday.

Sea turtle meat is

considered a delicacy

for Zanzibari residents, although it periodically causes deaths from

chelonitoxicism

, a type of food poisoning.

The adult who died on Friday night was the mother of one of the children who succumbed earlier, Mkoani district doctor

Dr Haji Bakari said.

He said the turtle meat was consumed on Tuesday.

Bakari told The Associated Press that laboratory tests had confirmed that all of the victims had eaten sea turtle meat.

Authorities in Zanzibar, which is a semi-autonomous region of the East African nation of Tanzania, sent a disaster management team led by

Hamza Hassan Juma,

who urged people to avoid eating sea turtles.

In November 2021, seven people, including a 3-year-old child, died in Pemba after eating turtle meat, while three others were hospitalized.