Kidapawan to launch Info campaign on toxic cassavas

KIDAPAWAN CITY, Philippines  – Mayor Joseph Evangelista on Tuesday ordered the city’s health and agriculture offices to launch a massive information campaign to prevent a repeat of Sunday’s  deaths of two children after ingesting toxic cassava root crops.

The two fatalities, four-year-old Irene Diarog, and her younger sibling, Jessica, of Barangay Santo Niño here, died writhing in painful abdominal spasms while vomiting profusely.

Twelve other ethnic Manobos in Barangay Santo Niño, who also feasted on the boiled cassava that downed the Diarogs, are still undergoing medication at a local hospital.

Evangelista said his office has extended assistance to the Diarog family and to the food poisoning patients being treated at a hospital.

Samples of the still uncooked cassava gathered from the victims’ houses have been taken for toxicity evaluation by the Department of Health, according to Evangelista.