Caffeine poisoning hits 600 children.

The City’s Health Department is investigating how energy chewing gum, whose sell-by date had expired, landed up in the hands of more than 600 children who have been treated for possible caffeine overload.

On Tuesday Fisantekraal residents milled around the clinic next to the Trevor Manuel Primary School when children complained of stomach pains and headaches.

As the day progressed more and more children arrived at the clinic complaining of similar symptoms and were taken to hospitals across the city.

It is believed the Blitz Caffeine Energy Gum was dumped by a company on a farm in Fisantekraal, near Durbanville.

Some of Trevor Manuel Primary School pupils collected the dumped sweets and sold them to fellow pupils and other Fisantekraal residents for 50c a pack.

The schools’ principal, Edward Rasmus, said more than 600 of his pupils were affected.

He said the children all had similar complaints, which were primarily stomach and head pains.

“We can’t say it is the gum that caused it and we can’t say it isn’t,” Rasmus said, adding, however, that the chewing gum was the common thread.

“The concern is that the gum has been spread through the whole community, because the children who picked it up on the farm sold it everywhere,” he said.

Chantell Basson, who lives close to the school, was at the clinic when the first three pupils came in.

She said the two boys and a girl were crying and had severe stomach pains. One of the boys collapsed in pain.

“The nurses gave them glucose water and then more children came in with the same stomach cramps,” said Basson.

Yesterday the city’s Health Department director, Dr Ivan Bromfield, said the product was not meant to be consumed by children.

The gum’s packaging says that it is not recommended for children, pregnant or breast feeding women or caffeine sensitive people.

It also says that one pack is the equivalent of six energy drinks.

Bromfield said medical experts assumed that the children who were receiving treatment may have suffered a caffeine overload.

“We will be investigating how the product came to be on the farm and why the children had access to it,” he said

Laticia Pienaar, spokeswoman for Tygerberg Hospital, confirmed last night that seven girls and three boys were kept overnight for observation. She said they were in a stable condition, showed no signs of food poisoning and would be discharged later today.

The provincial Health Department’s medical rescue services confirmed they received the first call to attend to the children at 10am yesterday.

Metro Rescue’s Emergency Medical Service’s (EMS) Keri Davids said they transported 174 children, between the ages of seven and 14, to the Tygerberg and Karl Bremer hospitals and to the Kraaifontein, Delft and Elsies River community health clinics.

An EMS doctor also treated and discharged 419 children at the Fisantekraal clinic.

The children were treated for stomach cramps, headaches, lethargy and vomiting, Davids said.

Albert Ngetu, the father of 10-year-old Zandry Ngetu, raced to the clinic after she started vomiting.

A panicked Ngetu, said he had made Zandry drink milk after she had told him she ate the chewing gum.

“And then she started vomiting and couldn’t stop,” he said.

Police spokesman Warrant Officer November Filander confirmed this morning that they were assisting health department officials in tracing the origins of the expired chewing gum and that an inquest docket had been opened.

Disaster Risk Management spokesman Wilfred Solomons-Johannes said it was not clear when laboratory tests on the chewing gum would be completed. (from IOL)