19 taken ill with food poisoning
19 taken ill with food poisoning
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Police are investigating a catering firm after 19 children who
attended a birthday party in Cipinang, East Jakarta, were rushed
to hospitals with suspected food poisoning over the weekend.
City police spokesman Sr. Comr. Tjiptono said police would
decide soon whether people from the catering firm should be
charged over the incident.
"We are now interviewing the parents who organized the
birthday party as well as several people from the catering firm.
A sample of food has been brought to our laboratory to determine
whether it was contaminated," Tjiptono said.
Police were waiting for the test results before they declared
anyone a suspect, he said.
To make his children happy on his birthday, a parent, Leon
Rapel Batubara, invited other children from neighborhood for a
party and hired the local catering company nearby his house.
"Initially, the party went fine. But after the dinner most
children started to throw up, and some of them became
unconscious," Tjiptono said.
Eight children were treated at the Persahabatan Hospital,
eight at the Jayakarta Hospital, and three at the Gatot Subroto
Hospital.
Several parents reported the case to the Pulo Gadung Police.
The alleged food poisoning was the latest in a series of cases
involving catering firms in the past few months.
Over 10 cases of food poisoning in the city have occurred in
2005 while the Food and Drugs Monitoring Agency (BP POM) said
cases had increased in 2004 and 2005.
On Feb. 1, dozens of employees of SCTV had to be brought to
hospital because of poisoning from catered food when they
celebrated the station's birthday.
A month later 78 workers of a thread factory in Bogor and
dozens of workers from a factory in Bekasi also became ill.
According to data from BP POM, 63 cases of food poisoning
occurred in the city in 2004 with 3,316 people becoming sick and
14 dying. The agency found 43 cases in 2003 and predict incidents
would rise in 2005.
Tjiptono said police would closely monitor catering companies
in the city to avoid similar incident from repeating.
"Catering firms should make sure that they served hygienic
fresh food," he said.