According to Dr. Beverly Wright, of the Manchester Health Department, some vendors at the Mandeville Market in Manchester are using formaldehyde (a deadly chemical that is used to preserve dead bodies before burial) to prevent their fish from spoiling. Dr. Wright made the disclosure during a Board of Health meeting at the Manchester Parish Council yesterday.
According to reports, in March of this year, a resident became ill after eating a fish that had been purchased at the market. The Ministry of Health was alerted, and they instantly took nine samples of fish from various vendors in the market. The samples were sent to the Government’s laboratory in Kingston for testing, and all nine samples tested positive for the chemical formaldehyde.
Indications are that the police will be investigating the matter in order to determine how the vendors came in possession of the chemical. Secretary Manager of the Manchester Parish Council, Alfred Graham, and Mayor of Mandeville Brenda Ramsay, have reportedly summoned fish vendors who sell in market to a meeting at the council’s chambers some time next week.
61 year old Mandeville businessman Vincent Young, of a Beverly Green address in Manchester, was reportedly shot and killed by gunmen during a robbery at his supermarket in Mandeville yesterday.
According to police reports, Young and his wife were closing their business place last night at approximately 10:15 p.m. when four men, three armed with guns, approached and demanded money. He refused and the gunmen opened fire, hitting him several times. Young reportedly pulled his licensed revolver and fired at the men, but not before they took a bag with an undetermined sum of cash and cheques, as well as his wife’s handbag.
The robbers reportedly escaped in a white Toyota motor car. Young was taken to the Mandeville hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Following consultation with the Ministry of Health, education officials have lifted the ban on summer schools and graduations in Manchester.
The ban was put in place in the parish last month, after two cases of Influenza A H1N1 (formerly Swine Flu) were detected in two students in that parish. Since then, there have been no new cases in Manchester.
The Ministry of Education is reminding parents that they are to keep children with fever and flu-like symptoms away from summer school. Adults working in schools who have these symptoms are also to stay away from work until the fever has cleared up.
School administrators are reminded that where students show flu-like symptoms the matter must be brought to the attention of the relevant health authorities and reported to the Ministry of Education.
Meanwhile, the ministry is reminding schools islandwide that they are to set up areas to quarantine any student with flu-like symptoms. The Ministry is also reminding schools that in such instances, parents are to be notified immediately, the students are to be removed from school, and the matter reported to the Ministries of Education and Health.
At last count, there were 33 confirmed cases of Swine Flu cases in Jamaica.
