PAYING THEIR JUICE. Employees of Cebu Mitsumi Inc. in Danao City crowd around the cart of Benito Ong, who sells cold pineapple juice. Danao city officials want to enforce a “no sanitary permit, no business permit’ policy for ambulant vendors after 271 plant workers suffered diarrhea, traced to contaminated water.
Food vendors with no sanitation permits sell outside Mitsumi plant; Water, ice suspected
Benito Ong,52, sells pineapple juice across the Mitsumi plant, one of several vendors who were warned to get a health and sanitary inspection permit.
“I still have to comply (with the requirements) this week,” Ong told Cebu Daily News yesterday as he served cold juice in plastic cups for P3 (small) and P5 (large) with a smile.
After the recent diarrhea outbreak that sent 52 employees to hospital and caused 271 to fall ill, Danao city officials are tightening up on requirements.
Health officials suspect this was caused by contaminated water used for ice cubes supplied to ambulant vendors like Ong, who cater to plant employees who come out during their break time.
Several food vendors outside the plant and the ice dealer, a certan “Jo-Boy”, were still operating yesterday when CDN visited.
For Ong, who’s been vending for five years, this is is his only source of income for the family. His wife is jobless and they have one child. He said he has not undergone any seminar on sanitary food handling.
Asked how he prepares the juice, Ong, said he mixes cans of pineapple juice, mineral water and ice bought from “J-Boy” who lives near the plant.
Ramonette Durano Mahinay, Danao city information officer, said a taskforce will be formed to monitor the ambulant vendors outside the factory.
The water used for ice cubes sold to the vendors was found positive of fecal coliform, said Renan Cimafranca, chief of the Department of Health’s Regional Epidemiological and Surveillance Unit (RESU).
Cimafranca identified the same person, “Jo-Boy” as the source of the vendors’ ice cubes. He said the water came from piped water of the Danaco city waterworks system.
“We suggested to the city health officials not to let Jo-Boy sell ice for now unless the water condition is corrected,” he said.
CDN went to the house of Jo-Boy near the plant. He denied that the water was dirty. He said he used “mineral water” to make ice.
“We use mineral water for drinking and cooking food here. Even our boarders haven’t suffered diarrhea. The water from the faucet is only used for bathing and watering the plants,” he told CDN.
Test results of water samples were released yesterday. Samples inside the Japanese firm were found negative of bacteria while supply from the local waterworks system was found to have fecal coliform.
Cimafranca told CDN it’s possible the contamination started from the source of the water system.
Two Mitsumi workers tested positive for cholera. One is from barnangay Sabang, confirmed Mahinay.
“She’s back to work after a four-day sick leave. We are still tracing the profile of the other patient,” she said.
Cimafranca of DOH said authorities suspected the canned juices sold across Mitsumi plant by ambulant vendors were contaminated by ice made from piped water. He said its possible the contamination was at the source of the water system itself in barangay Sabang.
CDN’s news team went to sitio Lubang in Sabang and found resident Joel Nuñez fetching water from a deep well. Beside it was a chlorinator. Nuñez said families have been using the well water for cooking and drinking since 1962.
“So far, wala man sad me madaot sa sigeg gamit ani nga tubig (We never got sick ever since we used water from the well),” he told CDN.
Cimafranca of DOH said the well could have been contaminated because it had no cover and is located near a septic tank. CDN observed that there was no cover in the well.