188 kids, three teachers hospitalized after lunch in Hanoi kindergarten

The patients, students and teachers from the Xuan Non Nursery School in Dong Anh District suffered high fever, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

Director of the Dong Anh General Hospital, Chu Dinh Nang, said they received 115 children and one teacher. Two children were later transferred to the National Hospital of Tropical Diseases and another three have been discharged. The remaining 110 children and one teacher are still being treated at the hospital.

The Bac Thang Long General Hospital has admitted 73 children and two teachers, said director Do Quang Thuan.

Nguyen Khac Hien, head of Hanoi's Department of Health, told VnExpress that all the patients had food poisoning symptoms.

Preliminary investigations show that during lunch time on Wednesday, the Xuan Non Nursery School threw a party for its students and teachers to celebrate the Vietnamese Teachers' Day. The meal was a buffet of sausages, beef, sticky rice, fried rice, boiled vegetables; they were served orange juice, yogurt and cake in the afternoon.

Some children started displaying symptoms of food poisoning Thursday morning and were rushed to hospital, while the rest of the affected children showed similar symptoms in the afternoon.

The Hanoi's Food Safety Department is investigating the lunch served on Wednesday and Thursday at the kindergarten.

Food poisoning is not an uncommon occurrence in Vietnamese schools and workplace canteens.

Last month, 55 children were hospitalized with food poisoning after having meals at a church service in Ho Chi Minh City.

Earlier the same month, 300 children at a primary school in the northern province of Ninh Binh were rushed to hospital with food poisoning after lunch.

In December last year 142 children of the An Phu Primary School in HCMC’s District 2 were hospitalized and diagnosed with gastrointestinal infections after eating food served in the school.

The offenders in such cases are rarely taken to court.

Data from the General Statistics Office shows more than 1,200 people were affected in 44 cases of food poisoning in the first half of this year. Seven of them died.