Seven people have died and dozens more are said to be in hospital after eating poisonous turtle meat in Tanzania’s semi-autonomous region of Zanzibar.

Zanzibar’s President Hussein Mwinyi have equally sent condolences to the families of the deceased.

This was contained in a message shared in Twitter.

Some 24 others were admitted to hospital in Pemba after the incident.

Turtle meat is a common delicacy among locals living along the coastal areas of the Indian Ocean.

It is believed that this particular one consumed was from a poisonous species.

Pemba police boss Juma Sadi has however banned the consumption of turtle meat following the incident.

Meanwhile, experts have warned that consuming turtle meat on a regular basis should be stopped as it can result in severe, even fatal, poisoning to humans.

This according to a Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT) marine biology lecturer Doctor Muhammad Hafiz Borkhanuddin , who on Sunday, 6 September, asserted that eating turtle meat could lead to metallic poisoning as well as a host of diseases caused by parasitic and bacterial infections.

As a research scientist with the university’s Faculty of Science and Marine Environment, Hafiz said that turtle meat has been found to contain high concentrations of metal that exceeds international food safety standards.

He however warned that eating meat with such high metal content could “cause toxic effects and result in several illnesses such as kidney disease, liver cancer, as well as affect foetal development”.