PANIC prevailed after about 22 children fell sick due to food poisoning after consuming mid-day meal in their school at village Sonsai Navagaon in Kota block on Saturday. They have all been admitted to a hospital where their conditions are stable. Following the incident, the Health Department has deployed additional medical teams in the village and all the adjacent villages to provide medical assistance and distribute medicines among the ailing children.

The medical team has collected sample of the mid-day meal served to the children for examination. On Saturday afternoon, when the children reached their homes from school, their health started deteriorating with vomiting and loose motion. With all the children having symptoms of diarrhoea the villagers informed about this to Sarpanch and Mitanin who gave them necessary medicines. But, when their conditions did not improve, the parents took the children to Khongsara Primary Health Centre (PHC) where the doctors admitted them and started their treatment.

Instantly after information, the Health Department teams reached the village following instructions of Block Medical Officer (BMO) Dr Nikhilesh Gupta. In-charge of Khongsara PHC Dr Mithlesh Bhardwaj also reached the hospital and referred the children who were serious, to Kota and Ratanpur Community Health Center (CHC) for further treatment. BMO Dr Nikhilesh Gupta informed that after consuming mid-day meal at school, about 22 children fell sick with symptoms of diarrhea. Later during treatment they found that it was due to food poisoning and hence only the children who consumed mid-day meal in the school were sick. He revealed that all the children went to school on Saturday where they were served mid-day meal. When the children reached home after school, their health started deteriorating. The Health Department team that reached village Sonsai Navagaon after information admitted the sick children to hospital. The officials advised villagers to get the children admitted immediately if their health deteriorates. On Monday morning, the Health Department teams visited the village and held medical camps to provide health support to the people and distribute free medicines. The health department team also alerted the villagers to consume boiled water which kills the harmful bacteria. The health department has also started taking precautions collecting water samples from different areas of the village. The team of Health Department has also started searching for patients knocking door to door. BMO Dr Nikhilesh Gupta told that the children suffering due to food poisoning were having symptoms similar to diarrhea. He said that a team of medical officials collected water and food samples from the school for further investigation. They also went through the cleanliness in school and cleaning of the utensils.