CUDDALORE: Four children who brushed their teeth using rodenticide paste, mistaking it for toothpaste, in Aladi near Vriddhachalam of Cuddalore district, were hospitalised on Saturday night and are in the Intensive Care Unit in JIPMER, Puducherry.
The incident happened when R Lavanya (5) and Rashmitha (2) from Kokkampalayam village, daughters of Raja who works abroad, visited the place of their cousins — M Janusha (3) and M Balamithiran (2), children of A Manikandan — in the nearby Kottarakuppam village to attend a temple festival.
As per a doctor treating them, the children are under observation as the effect of the poison may take up to 72 hours to become evident. “While three of them only started brushing their teeth using the paste, one child, Balamithiran, swallowed some of it,” said the senior doctor from Government Cuddalore Medical College Hospital in Chidambaram.
Police said the children were playing with the rat killer paste tube and later used the same to brush teeth. “On seeing the kids with the tube in hand and the paste in mouth, family members rushed them to the government hospital in Vriddhachalam and then shifted them to the medical college hospital,” said police. Upon parents’ request, the kids were transferred to JIPMER on Sunday night.
TN banned rat paste in 2022
The Tamil Nadu government had imposed a permanent ban on the sale of rat paste in grocery shops, supermarkets, and medical shops in 2022.
However, sources alleged that some shops, especially those in the Tamil Nadu-Puducherry border villages, still sell it illegally. Police said that the rat paste used by the children was bought by Manikandan two years ago and kept in the house.
Police have not filed a case yet as no complaint was received until Sunday evening. However, an inquiry is under way. An official from the Health and Family Welfare department said though the item is banned, it is the police department’s responsibility to enforce the ban as it is still available in small shops. A senior police official from Cuddalore told TNIE that they have already spread awareness about the dangers of the banned rodenticide paste