Regarding the case of 23 students of Kien Hai District Secondary and High School (Kien Giang) suffering from food poisoning, the District Health Center has requested the School Board to consider moving the school's canteen to another area to ensure food safety and hygiene conditions.
In addition, the District Health Center also recommends strengthening propaganda and instructing facilities to ensure hygiene and food safety conditions, strictly implementing the management of food ingredients' origins, three-step food inspection, food sample storage and hygiene in processing stages.
Disseminate and educate people about food safety and measures to prevent food poisoning, raise awareness, change unsafe behaviors and habits in food selection and use, do not use food of unknown origin. Create conditions for regular health check-ups for facility owners and employees in the processing area.
According to the results of the investigation into the poisoning, it was concluded that because the students did not eat the same dish at the same breakfast at the school cafeteria, it was impossible to conclude which exact dish caused the food poisoning. However, based on the attack rate between the dishes and the elimination calculation, it was determined that the chicken rice and rib rice dishes had a high attack rate, so the suspected food causing the poisoning was chicken rice and rib rice.
Previously, on September 23, the Department of Examination and Emergency Resuscitation admitted a number of students from Kien Hai Secondary and High School to the hospital with symptoms of fever, abdominal pain, diarrhea, and vomiting. Kien Hai District Health Center coordinated with Hon Tre Commune Health Station to go to the Department of Examination and Emergency Resuscitation of Kien Hai District Health Center to coordinate with the district's interdisciplinary inspection team for food safety and hygiene and the commune's interdisciplinary inspection team for food safety and hygiene to investigate food poisoning at the school canteen.
According to Kien Hai Secondary and High School, the school has a contract with the school canteen under the name of Mr. N.V.C. After breakfast on September 23 with a menu of 4 dishes: chicken rice, pork rib rice, vermicelli with crab soup, and bread, at about 10 p.m. on September 23, about 5 students were hospitalized with symptoms of high fever, stomachache, diarrhea, vomiting, etc. By 6 a.m. on September 25, the number of hospitalized students with the same symptoms increased, to a total of 23 people (22 students and 1 adult).
The food poisoning investigation team of Kien Hai District Health Center worked with the school's Board of Directors and instructed the school to notify the homeroom teacher and family to take the student to the District Health Center for examination if the student showed signs of being unwell.
Currently, health condition is stable, all have been discharged from hospital.
At the time of the poisoning, Kien Hai District Health Center coordinated with the district's interdisciplinary food safety inspection team and the commune's interdisciplinary food safety inspection team to inspect the canteen of the middle and high school under the name of Mr. N.V.C. The inspection team found that the facility was not hygienic, around the processing area there was a sanitary facility for household waste incinerator of the residential area, there were many flies around the canteen and incinerator area.
The water source used for cooking is not hygienic (well water is not filtered). The facility does not have a three-step food inspection book; does not store daily food samples; does not provide protective gear for food processing staff. There are periodic health check-ups for the owner and 2/4 employees but they have expired for nearly a month. The origin of some foods purchased for processing such as chicken, pork, pork skin, additives, colorants, etc. cannot be proven.
