3,300 Egyptian Children Hospitalized After Food Poisoning
By NOUR YOUSSEFMARCH 15, 2017
CAIRO — More than 3,300 children were hospitalized in Egypt on Tuesday after an outbreak
of food poisoning at several state-run primary schools, state-owned news media said.
Apparently in an attempt to deflect some of the anger, the governor of Sohag, Ayman Abdel-Moneim, quickly suspended the distribution of government meals and demanded
that changes be made to how they were stored and transported to schools.
Children, most younger than 12, began vomiting within an hour of eating the lunches, Ahmed Nashaat, a Sohag lawmaker, said in a telephone interview.
The mass poisoning, in the impoverished Upper Egypt province of Sohag, north of
Luxor, was one of the biggest food-safety cases to hit the country in years.
Earlier this month, more than 214 students were found to have food poisoning caused
by government meals at several schools in the provinces of Minya and Assiut.
Outrage over such instances of perceived government neglect was a main cause of the popular uprising in 2011
that toppled the government of President Hosni Mubarak.
Samples from the lunches, consisting of processed cheese cubes, dry sesame paste bars and loaves of bread, were being analyzed, they added.