As many as 46 girls from the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike Girls' Composite Pre-University College at J.P. Park (in Mathikere) took ill after consuming food supplied by the Akshaya Patra Foundation to the college here on Thursday morning.
They were admitted to the K.C. General Hospital, where they were treated for mild food poisoning, and later discharged.
Common symptoms
Hospital Medical Superintendent R.L. Chandraprabha said that the students were admitted with common symptoms of indigestion, vomiting and giddiness. “While 29 were kept under observation till evening and were on saline, the others were treated as outpatients and sent home.” By evening, those who continued to complain of giddiness, pain in the abdomen and weakness remained in hospital
Narrating what happened, headmaster Muralidhar told The Hindu that the girls of Class 1, who had come for a special class at 8.15 a.m., were served food (rice and ‘majjige huli') supplied by Akshaya Patra Foundation at 9.15 a.m. as is the usual practice. “Some children of Class 8 had also come and ate with the Class 10 children. These took ill first around 10.30 a.m. By noon, the older children also started complaining of stomach ache,” he said. They were first treated at a health centre close-by and later shifted to K.C. General Hospital.
No problems elsewhere
The Akshaya Patra Foundation, in a press release, said the food samples have been collected from the school and sent to a third-party, NABL-accredited laboratory. It said that it had traced the batch of the food supplied to the school, which was the same distributed in over 20 schools en route . None of the other schools had any problems. “It appears that the problem is local; however, we are investigating,” it said.
Bharathi Ghanashyam, head of communications and donor care, has said the food was supplied from the same kitchen that serves 85,000 children.
B.R. Nanjundappa, ruling party leader and councillor from J.P. Park, claimed that only two of the students were “really ill”, while others “had assumed that they were already ill”. The BBMP had also collected samples, he added.
