Tainted meal sickens Indian schoolchildren; at least 22 die

Associated Press

PATNA, India

The children started falling violently ill soon after they ate the free school lunch of rice, lentils, soybeans and potatoes.

The food, part of a program that gives poor Indian students at least one hot meal a day, was tainted with insecticide, and soon, at least 22 of the students were dead and dozens were hospitalized, officials said Wednesday.

It was not immediately clear how chemicals ended up in the food at the school in the eastern state of Bihar. One official said that the food may not have been properly washed before it was cooked.

The children, between age 5 and 12, got sick soon after eating lunch Tuesday in Gandamal village in Masrakh block, 50 miles north of the state capital of Patna. School authorities immediately stopped serving the meal as the children started vomiting.

Savita, a 12-year-old student who uses only one name, said she had a stomach ache after eating soybeans and potatoes and started vomiting.

“I don’t know what happened after that,” Savita said in an interview at Patna Medical College Hospital, where she and many other children were recovering.

The lunch was cooked in the school kitchen.

The children were rushed to a local hospital and later to Patna for treatment, said state official Abhijit Sinha.