Mumbai: Hundred and sixty four pupils were admitted to the Malegaon Civil Hospital for suspected food poisoning after eating a government-sponsored mid-day meal at their school, said a health official yesterday.
"The children were served rice kedgeree at the Jamhoor High School between 10.30 and 11 in the morning and soon after some of them started complaining of vomiting and nausea," Dr Bharat Wagh, Health Officer of Malegaon civic body, told Gulf News.
"Initially, around 10 to 15 children were brought to the nearby Ali Akbar Hospital where they were treated and became stable."
However, the situation turned worse, he said, when word spread that the mid-day meal had caused food poisoning and parents rushed in with their children to the hospital for treatment to ensure that nothing untoward happened to them.
"As panic spread across the city, there were uncontrollable mobs at the 30-bed hospital and we had to shift the children to the 200-bed Malegaon Civil Hospital where most of them are now stable. No one is serious and I expect some of the patients to be discharged later in the evening," Wagh said.
The food supplement was provided by Regional Deputy Director, Nashik, and not by the civic body, he added.
Samples of the food have been sent to the Food and Drugs Laboratory in Pune for analysis.
According to a local website ummid.com, parents of the pupils, after hearing the news, started gathering inside the school compound and demanded action against the teachers concerned.
As a result, the staff were forced to lock themselves in a room. Police came and controlled the mob, while ambulances began shifting the pupils to the hospital.
The Urdu medium school is situated in a slum area of Malegaon city and most of the pupils hail from poor families.
A few months earlier, there were complaints of irregularities in the mid-day meal scheme being reported from the same school.
