In Tamil Nadu, Nearly 150 Hospitalized After Eating School Lunch

Strdel/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images Schoolchildren receiving a free midday meal at a school in Patna, Bihar on Thursday.

NEW DELHI- As many as 147 school girls were hospitalized on Thursday after eating a free lunch at a government school in Tamil Nadu, the local hospital authorities said.

The children from an all-girls high school in Neyveli township in the Cuddalore district complained of dizziness, vomiting and diarrhea soon after they ate a meal of sambar (a spicy lentil broth) and rice, said Dr. Pattu Ravi, a general superintendent at Neyveli General Hospital. He also said that some of those admitted had been given bread for lunch.

The students, ages 12 to 15, received emergency treatment after they were brought into the hospital Thursday afternoon in groups. Describing it as a simple case of “food infection,” Dr. Ravi said none of the patients were in critical condition. After keeping them under observation overnight, the children are likely to be discharged Friday morning, he said.

Dr. Ravi declined to confirm local media reports that identified contaminated eggs as the cause of the illness.

This incident raised alarms as it came a day after more than 20 children in Bihar died from eating a government school lunch believed to have been prepared with cooking oil stored in a pesticide container. One more child died Thursday, bringing the death toll to 23, and nearly two dozen children are still hospitalized.

Organophosphate, a chemical commonly used in insecticides and solvents, was found in the children's bodies during postmortem investigations, a Bihar government hospital official said.

“It was not a case of normal food poisoning, but it was poison in food,” Amarjeet Sinha, secretary of the human resource development department of Bihar, told reporters. “Whether it was accidental or deliberate will be known after detailed investigation.”

The 12 girls and 11 boys who died in Bihar were victims of negligence by the school authorities, said P. K. Shahi, the state's human resource development minister. He said in a statement on Wednesday that the cook's complaints to the school headmistress about the contaminated cooking oil was ignored.

The headmistress dismissed the complaint by saying that it was homemade oil, Mr. Shahi said.

The headmistress and her family are still at large. No arrests have been made so far.