Under Secretary of the Ministry of Health in Beni Suef Ahmed Anwar said that 77 Azhar students out of 79 who suffered poisoning have recovered and left the hospital.
Anwar said the Ministry of Helath sent a committee of doctors to re-inspect the students in Beni Suef and to make sure they received the needed injections and medications.
Another committee has been sent to Al-Azhar institute which distributed the spoiled dry meals on students in Aqqad village to inspect its stockrooms and stored meals. The committee took samples of the meals and the results will appear in 72 hours, Anwar said.
Ninety students suffered food poisoning in an al-Azhar school in the village of Aqqad in Beni Suef, after eating spoiled school meal.
The poisoned students were rushed to Beni Suef General Hospital when they suffered from vomiting and diarrhea after eating the school meal during their lunch break.
Walid Refaee, head of Beni Suef prosecutions, took samples of the students’ vomit and samples of the meals for analysis and ordered the detention of the supplier of meals, director of the institute and food supervisor pending investigation.
Prosecutors had moved to Ehnasia Hospital to listen to the students before they left.
Prosecutors listened, on Thursday, to the testimony of Hamdan Bakry, senior official at the institute. He said the Department of Nutrition contracts with a meal supplier for meals distributed to 520 pupils during the break.
Bakry said an Arabic teacher told him that the cheese being distributed on the pupils was spoiled. “I asked him to halt distribution and I took a sample of the cheese to the health unit for analysis,” Bakry added.
Bakry said when he came back to school, the students had already eaten the meals and were vomiting and suffering diarrhea.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
