Teenager, 17, dead and eight family members hospitalised after poisoned by New Year's Day dinner in Brazil

Three relatives are currently fighting for their lives while detectives investigate in Brazil. The teenager died and family members were hospitalised after tucking into a donated New Year’s Day fish meal.

The people who gifted them the food were due to speak to detectives although there is no evidence at this stage pointing to a crime having taken place. Officers said they had gone to the authorities themselves and the victims had eaten the fish but left the rice they were given.

Manoel Leandro da Silva, 17, died in an ambulance as he was being rushed to hospital in Parnaiba in the north-east Brazilian state of Piaui. Police initially said a two-year-old relative had also died although they subsequently corrected the information.

The other family members said to have needed hospital treatment have been identified as Manoel Leandro’s two sisters, his three nieces, his stepdad Francisco de Assis Pereira da Costa, 53; and Maria Jocilene da Silva, 41, and her two-year-old son. Piaui’s Civil Police have described Manoel Leandro as the uncle of two children who died last year after eating poisoned cashew nuts. Ulisses Gabriel da Silva, eight, lost his fight for life in November after nearly three months in hospital. His brother Joao Miguel da Silva, seven, had died on September 12.

Local reports said a neighbour named as Lucelia Maria da Conceicao Silva, 52, had been charged with double homicide, after the second boy’s death. She was accused of giving them the sack of nuts which had been laced with an insecticide called Terfubos used on corn and sugar beats - and was remanded in prison pending an ongoing criminal probe after appearing before a judge.

Antonio Nunes, from the Piaui State Forensic Medicine Institute, said tests were being carried out on blood and urine samples from the poisoning victims on New Year’s Day as well as genetic material from the dead teenager’s stomach. Another forensic team has gone to a family home on the outskirts of Parnaiba where the fish was consumed and taken other food they had eaten to determine if it contained toxic substances.

They didn't eat the rice donated by the people, only the fish that came in the hamper which was an anchovy-type fish called Manjuba. Heda hospital director Carlos Teixeira told Brazilian media: “The patients’ symptoms were basically the same: below normal heart rate below normal, intense sweating, lowered level of consciousness. We are still carrying out tests to find out the source and the poisoning material. We are giving priority attention to the children in extremely serious condition.”