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BY MAE SINGUAY
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BACOLOD City – The Department of Education (DepEd) appealed to pupils and students to be more careful with what they eat and drink.
Schools Division Superintendent Cynthia Demavivas instructed principals to encourage their pupils and students to bring their own baon, or packed food, instead of buying from stores or ambulant vendors.
A “food and waterborne-disease outbreak” was declared in Barangay Handumanan after more than a hundred pupils from Handumanan Elementary School 1 were hospitalized for suspected food poisoning.
The City Health Office (CHO) was still waiting for the results of the laboratory test on the samples of water from the area, including the source of ice used in juices sold to the pupils.
The pupils’ medical condition was possibly caused by the food and water they ingested, it said.
Classes at Handumanan Elementary School 1 and 2 remained suspended. They will resume on Thursday. It is a holiday on Wednesday, the city’s Charter Day.
Demavivas said they do not want the incident to “escalate and saturate all pupils.”
On Sunday the local DepEd division and the CHO agreed to hold a food handling seminar among canteen and ambulant vendors.
Undergoing the seminar will be a requirement for the issuance of the vendors’ health card, stressed Demavivas.
Citing CHO records, Mayor Evelio Leonardia yesterday said there were 136 pupils confined in several hospitals here, 129 of whom were at the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital.
He said the city government provided the patients food assistance, while Rep. Greg Gasataya promised to help, through the Department of Health (DOH), with the patients’ hospital expenses.
A team from the DOH central office will arrive here today to conduct an in-depth investigation into the incident, said Dr. Jessie Glen Alonsabe, epidemiologist for DOH Region 6. It will get food and drink samples, he said./PN
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