Report confirms poisoning after MDM

PATNA: It has now been confirmed that 65 children, who fell ill after consuming midday meal (MDM) at Rajkiya Madhya Vidyalaya, Sinduari, in Vaishali district on Thursday, suffered from poisoning. A report to this effect has been submitted by the Vaishali district epidemiologist and sent to State Surveillance Officer in State Health Society of Bihar.

The report says, "After investigation, it has been found that all children and cook were affected from suspected poisoning." The reason of poisoning is yet to be verified but since the children fell ill immediately after consuming food, experts suspect it was food poisoning.

All the victims were given conservative treatment and discharged. However, such midday meal scare has been in news quite often. The children of Rajkiya Madhya Vidyalaya started vomiting and nauseating while many others complained of abdominal pain and dizziness.

Noted paediatrician Dr Nigam Prakash Narayan said it appears that children suffered from a mild infection. "But had the extent of infection been large, they could have suffered from toxic gastroenteritis which is very dangerous." If the children are given stale rice, they can suffer from starch infection.

Child Rights and You (CRY) spokesperson Saradindu Bandyopadhyay said such and other midday meal accidents in Bihar are a grim reminder of the tragedy that struck a Saran school in which 23 kids died due to consumption of food containing pesticide in July, 2013. He said, "Though the government has taken some measures like construction of separate kitchen sheds for cooking meals and arrangements for safe drinking water, these are confined only to a few schools."

As per the study conducted in 2013 by Bihar Lok Adhikar Manch (BLAM) in collaboration with CRY in 210 primary schools of the state in 21 districts, 26% respondents said though MDM programme was more or less regular, the quality was not at all satisfactory. The same report also said 58 per cent schools surveyed didn't even have a dedicated kitchen shed, hence the cooking environment is not at all satisfactory.

The Vaishali incident comes about a month-and-half before World Health Day, whose theme this year is Food safety. WHO says "unsafe food" causes deaths of 2 million people annually, including children. Food containing harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites or chemical substances is responsible for more than 200 diseases, ranging from diarrhoea to cancers. Unsafe food creates a vicious cycle of disease and malnutrition, WHO says.

Among its five recommendations, WHO suggests hand washing to keep food-borne diseases at bay. However, availability of safe water remains an issue in most of the schools in the state, Bandyopadhyay said. Keeping clean, separation of raw and cooked food, cooking food thoroughly and keeping food at safe temperature are the other four recommendations.