Food poisoning hits 200 students in China
Pastor Dale Morgan
Food poisoning hits 200 students in China*
POSTED: 0256 GMT (1056 HKT), September 4, 2006
BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- More than 200 students from a primary school
in southwest China were hospitalized for food poisoning during the
weekend, the official Xinhua news agency said on Monday.
Provincial authorities have sent a team to investigate the cause of the
poisoning, Xinhua said, adding that none of the cases was life-threatening.
Food poisonings are a frequent problem at Chinese schools, especially in
rural areas, where lax official supervision encourages canteen
contractors to cut costs at the expense of proper hygiene conditions and
food safety.
Of 185 food poisoning cases reported in China from April to June, about
a quarter involved school canteens that had made 1,400 people ill,
according to the Health Ministry.
In the latest case, Xinhua said, children from the Experimental Primary
School in Chongzhou city in Sichuan province filled three floors of a
local hospital.
"The pupils had a lunch in the school on Friday but developed symptoms
of food poisoning from Saturday night and Sunday," it said, adding that
the symptoms of headache, fever, diarrhea and vomiting were moderate.
In April, 112 students fell ill after a lunch at their primary school in
the southwestern province of Yunnan.
The biggest case in recent years occurred in 2003 when a soy drink
promoted by local education authorities poisoned some 3,000 pupils,
killing at least one in the northeastern province of Liaoning.