Tag Archives: School

Beware three-day old boiled eggs: 460 sick in Salmonella outbreak in Thailand school

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The number of students who have fallen ill from salmonella poisoning at a Chiang Mai school has risen to 460.

Health authorities told the Bangkok Post the students fell ill after eating three-day-old boiled eggs.

Dr Pornthep Siriwanarangsan, director-general of the Disease Control Department, said Chiang Mai Welfare School students became sick after eating donated eggs that were boiled three days previously and not reheated before they were consumed, allowing the bacteria to develop.

Of the 460 sick,, 290 are recovering at home, 123 are still in nine hospitals, and eight students are critically ill.

Another 47 students are being treated at the school’s gym, which has been turned into a field hospital as there are not enough hospital beds available to accommodate all the sick students.

Crypto outbreak in Welsh school kids?

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Public health officials are investigating several cases of stomach illnesses in sixth formers at a Cardiff school.

There has been one confirmed case of cryptospiriodis amongst sixth formers at The Bishop of Llandaf Church in Wales school.

Four other cases are also being looked at amongst pupils who went on a school trip over the Easter holidays.

Perhaps they went to a farm?

16 kids sick, 3 in hospital in Ottawa salmonella outbreak, catering service suspected

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Rewrite. Someone get me rewrite.

CBC News is reporting that 16 kids are sick in that Ottawa-area salmonella outbreak, and that a lunch catering service is being investigated.

CBC News has confirmed the outbreak involves children between the ages of 15 months and 14-years-old at three schools and one daycare.

There are several cases reported at the Tiny Hoppers Daycare in Kanata, and some at Turnbull School on Fisher Avenue and Steve MacLean Public School and École élémentaire catholique Jean-Paul-II in Gloucester.

Tiny Hoppers confirmed to CBC News it had a lunch caterer named "The Lunch Lady" serving for the past couple months, but this is its last week because the daycare has now hired an in-house chef.

The daycare’s director also said health officials were targeting one of the caterer’s kitchens as the possible source of the outbreak.

More than 100 ill with gastroenteritis symptoms at California middle school: ‘It didn’t feel good, it didn’t feel good at all’

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According to the Monterey Herald and KION a bunch of students at Los Arboles Middle School spent a bunch of time barfing yesterday. 110 kids had symptoms including nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps and diarrhea. Enough kids got sick that school nurses called in the health department and fire department as back-up.

To say Los Arboles Middle School student Paradise Williams had a rough morning is an understatement.
"It didn’t feel good, it didn’t feel good at all," says Williams.

The sixth grader was in math class Thursday morning when she felt dizzy, got cramps and started throwing up. The school got so many other students with the same symptoms, it set up a makeshift clinic with nurses in the school’s gym. When Paradise rushed there, 30 other students were already there.

"At the time it was bad," says Williams. "Everyone was around trash cans throwing up holding their stomachs, crying, throwing up, drinking water, throwing up the water."

The amateur epidemiologists cited in the story are guessing that a bad batch of out of date rice is to blame (not so sure on that one -ben).

By the afternoon, that number grew to 110 students. The Monterey County Health Department is investigating what caused the stomach flu. But, several students including Paradise suspect bad rice was served for breakfast at the nearby teen center. That angers Paradise’s mother.

"Are they looking on the dates of their food? Are they taking inventory on the dates? I don’t want this to happen again," says Williams.

But, the school district isn’t confirming that and called today’s sickness "rare."

Rare probably isn’t the right word to use here – acute and messy is probably better – and likely provides little comfort to the barfing tweens and their families. The school folks should be talking about their food safety risk-reduction systems (USDA requires a HACCP-based program for school meals provided under their nutrition program) and the type of stuff they have in place to limit spread (like hand soap in the restrooms).

Thanks to a sharp-eyed barfblog contributor for the tip.
 

Staffordshire school shut over E. coli outbreak

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BBC News reports three cases of E. coli O157 have been confirmed and all pupils at Friarswood Primary School in Newcastle-under-Lyme are being tested. The Health Protection Agency (HPA) said the school had been closed.

Staffordshire County Council said it is believed the infection was brought into the school from an outside source. A thorough clean is now under way.

Are the lunches you send to school making your kid sick?

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Sorenne has been going to full-time daycare – she doesn’t like that term so we call it school – since arriving in Australia. At 2-and-a-half years old, we knew she was getting bored with us, and needed to be hanging out with other kids.

The kids all have to wear sunhats, and high-powered sunscreen is applied liberally, not the mild stuff used in North America.

Amy’s been making a lunch every day, and I’m starting to help out. Today is was leftover spaghetti, cheese, a yoghurt (anything pre-packaged is wildly expensive, with those little yoghurts going for about $1.20 each) and apple slices. Everything is labeled Sorenne, and it goes into the fridge as soon as we arrive. Seems like a good system.

But after dealing with the tyranny and boredom of school lunches for about 12 years with the four Canadian daughters, I’m well aware of the challenges: most schools don’t have fridges for kids to use. Standard advice is to pack food with ice packs or use cooler bags, but that may not be enough.

Researchers at the University of Texas, Austin, measured the temperatures of food in bag lunches 90 minutes before children at air-conditioned Texas child-care centers were scheduled to eat them.

Ninety percent of the lunches were in insulated bags. Even so, the results were disgusting.

Less than 2 percent of the perishable items were in what the researchers deemed a safe temperature zone: less than 39.2 degrees or more than 140 degrees. Only 14 of 618 items — they focused on meats, dairy products and vegetables — in lunches with one ice pack were a safe temperature. Multiple ice packs weren’t much better: Just 5 of 61 items were safe.

Unsafe temperatures allow bacteria to grow, increasing the odds that kids will get a nasty foodborne illness, Fawaz Almansour, lead author of the new study, said.

The study, published Monday in Pediatrics, did not look at how many kids actually got sick. The important thing, Almansour said, is that their lunches put them at risk for a long list of bugs. Children younger than four are especially susceptible to foodborne illnesses.

The authors wrote, “These results indicate an urgent need for parents and childcare personnel to be educated in safe food practices.”

As usual, there were no recommendations for how this education was to magically happen.
 

Germany shuts school over E. coli O104 outbreak

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German officials closed a primary school in the west of the country on Tuesday after a number of students fell ill with E.coli O104 responsible for an outbreak that has killed 48 people.

The school in the town of Altenbeken will be shut for a week, about the length of the E. coli incubation period, to prevent a possible spread of the bacteria, local officials said.

So far more than 4,000 people in Europe and North America have been sickened by the bacteria, with all the cases so far traced to travel in, or produce from, northern Germany. The rate of infection has slowed considerably since its climax in May.

Health authorities have pinned the outbreak to contaminated vegetable sprouts and shoots, of the type eaten in salads, from an organic farm near Hamburg.

Health officials responsible for Altenbeken believed poor hygiene by both students and school canteen workers caused the spread of the bacteria, rather than contaminated bean sprouts.

Raw milk source of campylobacter that sickens 16 in Wisconsin school

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I would be a pissed off parent.

I’ve seen a lot of dumbass things involving food and my kids over the years, especially through schools, and I’ve always spoken up, but this is beyond stupid.

Who serves raw milk to kids in grade 4?

Laboratory test results show that the Campylobactor jejuni bacteria that caused diarrheal illness among 16 individuals who drank unpasteurized (raw) milk at a school event early this month in Raymond was the same bacteria strain found in unpasteurized milk produced at a local farm, according to officials from the Department of Health Services (DHS) and Western Racine County Health Department (WRCHD). A parent had supplied unpasteurized milk from the farm for the school event.

The farm did not sell the unpasteurized milk and there was no legal violation associated with the milk being brought to the school event. The farm is licensed and in good standing with the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.

And in an additional dumbass statement, Cheryl Mazmanian, director and health officer for the Western Racine County Health Department actually said, ‘As in similar cases, prevention comes down to washing hands and practicing good hygiene.’

How about don’t serve raw milk to little kids?

An updated table of raw-milk related outbreaks is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/rawmilk
 

E. coli infects two more children at UK school

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Two more cases of E. coli O157:H7 have been confirmed in students at Redfield Edge Primary School in Bristol, U.K., bringing the total of confirmed cases to seven.

Of the three children admitted to hospital for treatment, one remains there.

At least 40 other children reportedly had symptoms.

The school was closed May 20.
 

UK school with E. coli cases closed

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That school in the U.K. that closed a couple of classrooms in response to an apparent outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 has now been completely closed until further notice.

Two four-year-olds and one five-year-old have so far been taken to hospital but were said to be recovering yesterday. One was treated and discharged, with the other two still in hospital.

This Is Bristol reports that in the past week, parents of 28 other children reported they had mostly milder symptoms, typically stomach ache and diarrhea, with some children experiencing more severe symptoms such as bloody diarrhea.

The HPA said all affected children were being tested for E. coli O157 and initial test results indicated there were probably three with the infection.

Dr David Hunt, consultant with the HPA’s South West (North) Health Protection Unit, said: "We are working closely with Redfield Edge School and have now advised full closure of the school.

This is due to fact that the infection seems to have started to spread among older children, having started among year one and reception classes.”