How Toxic Fish From China Is Being Sold To Unsuspecting Kenyans As Fresh From Lake Victoria

Kenyans are being exposed to toxic Chinese fish shipped about 8,000km from china and sold as fish from Lake victoria at less than half of the amount local fish is sold.

The fish that takes days to transport from China arrives at a retail price of Sh230 a kilo while local fishmongers ask for Sh500. The imported fish is then repackaged together with stocks from L.Victoria to fool consumers that it is all locally fished.

The Kenyan government had banned the import on the Chinese fish but lifted the ban after protests by the Chinese embassy which termed the ban as a“trade war”.

According to Nation the fish had traces of mercury, lead, arsenic and copper. A revelation the Kenya National Bureau of Standards (KEBS) dismissed. The fish also tests positive for seven dangerous pesticides which are phosalone, tolyfluanid, flutonail, deltamethrin, acrinathrin, pretilachlor and tebufenpyrad.

These classes of pesticides if ingested cause cancer, mouth ulceration, dysphagia and abdominal pain, among other diseases.

The fish which is not fit for human consumption given its contamination levels has passed through the agencies involved in testing of the fish samples such as Kebs which have have failed to carry out effective tests and have allowed such fish to be sold in the market.