Eight children and one adult died following eating sea turtle meat on the island of Pemba, in the Zanzibar archipelago, and 78 people were hospitalized, authorities said on Saturday.
Sea turtle meat is considered a delicacy in Zanzibar, although deaths from food poisoning are periodically recorded.
Laboratory tests confirmed that all the victims ate sea turtle on Tuesday and the first death, the mother of one of the children, occurred on Friday, said Mkoani district doctor Haji Bakari.
Authorities in Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous region of the East African country of Tanzania, sent a disaster management team led by Hamza Hassan Juma, who asked the population to avoid consuming sea turtles.
In November 2021, seven people, including a 3-year-old child, died in Pemba following eating turtle meat, and three were hospitalized.