Kazakhstan's Ministry of Health has issued an official explanation regarding the tragedy in the Mangystau Region, where a family was poisoned by smoked fish and a 10-year-old boy died in hospital. It turned out that the child's chances of survival were critically slim: an ambulance was called only on the third day, by which time he had already fallen into a coma from severe botulism, the website infohub.kz reports.
According to the Ministry of Health, the child was hospitalized at the Munaily Central District Hospital on September 19. His condition was already assessed as extremely serious upon admission. The boy was immediately placed in the intensive care unit and connected to a ventilator, and anti-botulinum serum was administered.
The chief infectious disease specialist of the Ministry of Health, a professor, and an anesthesiologist-resuscitator who arrived in the region examined the patient and adjusted the treatment strategy. According to the ministry, throughout the child's stay in intensive care, specialists held several consultations involving various republican-level experts, but he could not be saved.
"Despite the volume of medical care provided and the resuscitation measures carried out, due to the severe course of the disease, the child developed cerebral edema, multiple organ failure and stage III coma. The child's death was pronounced on October 6, 2026," the official statement says.
The ministry also noted that the three other patients affected by the poisoning are currently receiving all necessary medical care.
Botulism is not an ordinary case of food poisoning, but an extremely severe and life-threatening disease. The toxin that enters the body directly attacks the nervous system. In critical cases, it causes paralysis: a person loses the ability to swallow and breathe independently, making it necessary to urgently connect them to a ventilator.
Earlier, "Kursiv" reported that three adults and one child were admitted to intensive care in the Mangystau Region after eating home-smoked fish.