Sixth rat poisoning victim identified, police trying to sniff out details

A sixth person has been confirmed as ingesting rat bait, two weeks after health authorities issued an alert for a poisoning incident in Brisbane that left five people hospitalised.

Queensland Health on Friday confirmed the person had tested positive for brodifacoum, a widely used rat poison.

They said investigations with police were ongoing.

It comes a week after the source of the poisoning was traced back to a homemade unlabelled capsicum and chilli paste, a homemade marinated eggplant and a homemade dough.

Queensland Health said the products “were made in a home kitchen and were gifted or purchased very locally in the Logan area at a community level from mid-September 2025”.

So far, there are no further details about the products’ origin, or how they came to be contaminated with rat poison.

The sixth person to test positive for brodifacoum was identified through contact tracing.

Authorities said the person was a family member of some of the people identified in the previous cluster.

No other cases external to the cluster already identified have been detected.

Queensland Chief Health Officer Dr Catherine McDougall said they believed there was no ongoing risk to the broader community, but issued an updated alert to clinicians in the Logan area “out of an abundance of caution”.

“In case there are other people who may have consumed the products and have not yet been identified,” she said.

McDougall said health authorities were “pleased that a food source link has been identified between all three families in the cluster and all patients are well and improving clinically” and added they were “confident that the products are not being currently made or distributed”.

Queensland police did not respond to questions from this masthead over whether the poisoning was being treated as targeted or suspicious.

Before the most recent alert, a spokesperson for Queensland Health said they were continuing to work with police “to investigate the origin and availability of the two homemade products identified”, with “no further updates at this time”.

Brodifacoum, the active ingredient in rat poison, inhibits vitamin K, which is essential for blood to clot. If ingested by humans, it can cause bleeding-related complications.

Director of infectious diseases at Mater Health, Professor Paul Griffin, said symptoms of rat poisoning could take “many days” to be noticed and he urged people to remain alert to any excessive or unexpected bleeding.

This included bleeding gums, unexplained bruises, blood in urine or stool and swelling of joints.

Queensland Health said anyone who believed they might have consumed identified products, or were experiencing unexplained bleeding, should visit their local GP, health centre or urgent care clinic for testing, or call 13 HEALTH.

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