SINGAPORE – Round or smooth foods, such as hard or sticky candy and whole grapes, pose a choking risk to children, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) said on March 31, urging parents to exercise caution when giving these items to their children.
This comes after various types of “eyeball” gummy candy, similar to the kind a child choked to death on in Malaysia, were found for sale here on e-commerce platforms.
Nuts and even popcorn can be a choking hazard, as can household items like coins, rings or marbles, according to the HealthHub website by the Ministry of Health.
Children below the age of two are most vulnerable to choking deaths, as they have a natural inclination to put objects into their mouths, the site said.
A 10-year-old boy in Penang reportedly lost consciousness in his Butterworth school on Feb 18 after choking on a table tennis ball-size gummy sweet resembling an eyeball.
Although emergency hospital staff removed the sweet from his throat, the boy had fallen into a coma and died in hospital two days later.
Malaysia’s Health Ministry in February ordered a ban on the sweets and instructed online e-commerce platforms to remove advertisements promoting them.
District health offices were also instructed to seize any similar products throughout Malaysia to ensure none were sold.
An independent Malaysian public health platform on Feb 21 put up a video showing the sweets turning into a thick, gooey sludge after being crushed with a mortar and pestle, telling parents to “imagine this sticky thing inside the throat and stomach of a child”.
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