A young woman and a girl from the same family died this Saturday in Havana for an alleged poisoning with nitro salt.
The 25 -year -old girl, and the child, just 5, died “due to the seriousness of her condition, which, presumably, was caused by having ingested food whose cooking was used nitro salt, thinking it was salt common”, reported The Provincial Health Directorate.
The note does not require the link between the two, but unofficial publications point out that it is a mother and her daughter.
Both had arrived with a third family member of the Polyclinic Andrés Ortiz, of the Havana municipality of Guanabacoa, with symptoms of poisoning, explains the official statement.
The information says that for this same reason “two other members of that family are being treated in hospital institutions of the capital.”
According to the surviving family member attended in the Polyclinic of Guanabacoa, the product that allegedly caused intoxication had been bought by him on Compostela Street in Old Havana “in the understanding that it was common salt.”
The fact is currently in research by the Ministries of Interior and Public Health, while the Havana Health System “is alert to possible cases that could arrive,” according to The journalist Lázaro Manuel Alonso.
Nitro salt is the common name of potassium nitrate, a chemical compound used as a conservative food agent for its bactericidal properties.
In gastronomy it is used to “cure” meats and sausages, but its direct consumption is considered dangerous, since it can cause intoxication and, in the worst case, death if ingested in large doses.
The shortage of food in Cuba and the high prices of the same leads many people to acquire them illegally in the so -called black market, without knowing their origin many times, which can lead to acts of this type.
