Story highlights Sweet shop's servant acknowledged mixing pesticide into sweets, official says

At least nine members of one family have died from eating the confections

(CNN) Twenty-six people, many of them from a single family, are dead after ingesting sweets that had been mixed with pesticide, Pakistani officials said.

Dozens more have been hospitalized.

Dr. Taha Salman, a visiting doctor in Layyah, said the patients need to be transferred to Lahore or Karachi medical centers because the local hospital doesn't have the capability to pump their stomachs.

Umer Hayat bought five kilograms (about 11 pounds) of laddu, a ball-shaped confection of dough and sugar, from Tariq Hotel & Sweet in the village of Karor Lal Esan, said Layyah District Coordination Officer Rana Gulzar. The village, in the Layyah district of Punjab province, sits about 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of Lahore.

The sweets were to celebrate the birth of Hayat's grandson, Abdullah, but recipients of the treats began falling ill Thursday, Gulzar said.

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