More than 1,000 Vietnamese hospitalized in mass food poisoning

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dpa German Press Agency
Published: Friday December 8, 2006

Hanoi- Emergency rooms in Vietnam's southern commercial centre were overwhelmed by more than 1,000 factory workers who became violently ill in a mass food poisoning in Ho Chi Minh City, officials said Friday. "There were so many patients, about 300 brought in at the same time, that we were confused at first," said To Vinh Ninh, head of Gia Dinh Hospital's emergency room.

"We had to mobilize 100 doctors and nurses and all the spare beds in the warehouse," he said. "The patients had to stay in the lobbies and hallways until we could fit them into the emergency room."

At least six other Ho Chi Minh City hospitals faced similar floods of patients after about half the 2,200 employees at the South Korean-owned garment factory Nobland Vietnam Co became sick Thursday after eating lunch in the factory cafeteria, a factory official confirmed.

Two hours after their lunch break, some workers began feeling dizzy, having convulsions and suffering headaches and nausea.

By Friday, most of the workers had been released from hospital, but the city's health department had taken a sample of the lunch - fried beef and beans, carrots, and soup with shrimp and rice - for analysis.

The dozens of large-scale foreign-owned factories making garments and shoes around Ho Chi Minh City have fuelled Vietnam's current economic boom, but the masses of people working and eating the same food have given rise to several mass food poisonings a year.

Most of the cases in the past few years have involved a few hundred workers, but factories are not the only source of large-scale illness from food

"This is not the largest-ever food poisoning case in the city," Do Hoang Giao, deputy director of Gia Dinh Hospital. "We've known even bigger cases at wedding parties."

© 2006 dpa German Press Agency