Bulacao officials probe ‘food poisoning’ incident that downed 9 kids

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CEBU CITY, Philippines – Barangay officials in Bulacao, Cebu City are looking into an alleged ‘food poisoning’ incident that downed at least nine children on Sunday, August 30.

The children were brought to a government hospital after they experienced vomiting and abdominal pains that are symptoms of food poisoning.

Barangay Captain Rodrigo Jabellana told CDN Digital in a telephone interview this Monday, August 31, that all the minors have been discharged from the hospital.

“They were discharged just today (Monday). Our ambulance fetched them from the hospital and now they’ve returned to their families,” Jabellana said in Cebuano.

Jabellana said they are now conducting an investigation to determined what actually caused their sickness.

He said that six children were first rushed to the hospital after they reportedly ate a day-old spaghetti.

Later in the day, three more minors who also ate the same spaghetti started to complain of vomiting and stomach ache and were brought to the hospital for treatment.

However, Jabellana said that it was still too early to actually say what caused the poisoning since laboratory results on the spaghetti that the children shared remains unavailable.  They are also yet to determine where it came from.

“There’s no information yet to verify if the children consumed the spaghetti given to them by a neighbor from a birthday party,” said Jabellana.

“Based on initial reports collated by our barangay workers, no one was having a birthday celebration last Saturday (August 29). No one also owned up to giving spaghetti to these children,” he added.

To prevent a repeat of the incident, Jabellana is asking parents to closely monitor the activities of their children and to constantly remind them against receiving food from strangers. / dcb