Many South African babies are being poisoned as families try to deal with a plague of rats or to keep their toilets clean. A new study, based on calls from throughout the country to the Tygerberg Poison Information Centre in Cape Town, found that in a three-year period more than 1000 poisoning cases involved children under the age of one.Of those, nearly 75% were poisoned by chemicals such as toilet cleaner, pesticide and surgical spirits.What is even more disturbing is that eight of the cases involving children under the age of one were caused deliberately.Lead researcher and director of the information centre Carine Marks said that, once infants became mobile (from about eight to 12 months), they started to explore their surroundings and inevitably put things in their mouths.Exposure to poison at such a critical stage in a child's development could have severe long-term health consequences, she explained.One of the main culprits is a common rat poison sold illegally by street vendors.According to the report, "poor and crowded areas are a breeding ground for most pests, and people seek cheap and effective ways to deal with the problem".Some end up with an illegally sold rat poison that is intended for agricultural use and has a much higher toxicity than rat poison intended for domestic use.According to the World Health Organisation, South Africa is one of the many low-income and middle-income countries that carry a heavy burden of accidental poisoning.Every year there are an estimated 500,000 cases of poisoning across all ages, ranging from mild to fatal.According to WHO, there are about 346,000 deaths from poisoning worldwide each year.Said Marks: "The detection of intentional poisoning is worrying as this is a rare phenomenon."Socioeconomic factors might play a role and it might require further investigation."Pumla Mtambeka of Childsafe South Africa said it was important to know which products were poisonous or dangerous.She said: "Attractively packaged products that look harmless and are used around the home can be dangerous when swallowed by a child."Often, products were not labelled as poisonous and contained only the word "caution" as a warning.Other causes of poisoning in the study included children putting medication and biological substances such as plants and mushrooms into their mouths...