For now, there is no official information about possible poisoning of people, specifically by mineral water or juice in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it was confirmed by the Food Safety Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In the Republic of Croatia, four cases of suspected poisoning with carbonated drinks have been confirmed so far. Three people ended up in a hospital in Zagreb, and one in Rijeka.
“The Croatian Institute of Public Health (HZJZ) is analyzing the samples of soft drinks from Rijeka that were delivered to them by the Sanitary Inspection, and these are two composite samples consisting of 16 bottles, a total of eight liters of liquid”, confirmed the director of HZJZ Krunoslav Capak .
“It is probably about some corrosive agents, and the most important thing is to see if there are any foreign elements in that drink, because the drink itself and all the contents inside cannot cause such injuries. The decision to withdraw the product from the market can only be made by the State inspectorate,” emphasized Capak.
Also, the European Food Safety Monitoring System warned of the presence of the banned pesticide chlorpyrifos in fruit produced in Croatia. It is a pesticide that is particularly dangerous for children, and was discovered in tangerines in Croatia and Slovenia.
“For now, we do not have information from official sources about the distribution of mandarins on the B&H market, in which the presence of the pesticide chlorpyrifos was determined,” said the Agency.
They add that this pesticide is banned in BiH.
“With the adoption of the List of active substances allowed for use in phytopharmaceuticals in BiH, the import of phytopharmaceuticals containing the active substance chlorpyrifos in BiH was prohibited, and sale, storage and use were allowed until April 16, 2020,” they said.
They state that in 2023, there were cases of determination of this pesticide in food intended for the BiH market.
“We are talking about imported food: peaches, plums, wheat processed into flour, carrots, but the competent authorities have taken measures to ban imports into BiH, that is, to withdraw the disputed food from the market. As part of the implementation of the Plan for Monitoring Pesticide Residues in and on Plant and Animal Food origin in 2023, which is still ongoing, the presence of the active substance chlorpyrifos was determined in one carrot sample and one imported potato sample. The determined concentration was above the prescribed MRL, but within the limits of measurement uncertainty, and the competent inspection the authorities have taken legally prescribed measures within their competence,” the Food Safety Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina pointed out.
