Meningitis scare widens in China capital
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Meningitis scare widens in China capital*
August 22, 2006 10:13am
Article from: Reuters
THE number of people who had contracted meningitis from eating snails in
Beijing had risen to 70, a state newspaper said today.
Health authorities had warned people not to eat raw or undercooked
snails and have banned the sale of uncooked snails in restaurants, the
China Daily said.
Many of the victims had eaten a dish made with the Amazonian snails at a
chain of Sichuan restaurants, the China Daily said.
The snails have also been blamed for destroying rice fields in
southwestern China.
China has been struggling to control a rise in the number of
food-related health incidents.
In 2004, a major health scandal erupted when China revealed that at
least 13 babies had died from malnutrition in the country's impoverished
eastern province of Anhui after being fed fake baby milk.
And several cases of bird flu, which has infected 21 people, have been
traced back to people eating sick birds.