Sour soup poisons more than 400 workers in Vinh Phuc

The information was announced by Director of Vinh Phuc Provincial Department of Health Le Hong Trung atOnline conference on food poisoning preventionorganized by the Ministry of Health on the morning of May 21. This test was conducted by the National Institute for Food Safety and Hygiene Control.

The poisoning incident occurred on May 14, when Shinwon Ebenezer Vietnam Co., Ltd. organized lunch for about 3,000 workers in two shifts. The first shift had about 1,000 meals, the second shift had about 2,000 meals. The meals cooked by the company included stir-fried chicken, broccoli, bean sprout soup, and pickles.

After the meal, a total of 438 workers were hospitalized with food poisoning. The two main symptoms were vomiting and frequent diarrhea. The symptoms came quickly and disappeared within 1-2 days. By the morning of May 21, no patients were still being treated in the hospital.

"Bacillus Cereus bacteria in the bean sprout soup was identified as the most suspected cause," Trung said, adding that the clinical symptoms the workers experienced, such as vomiting and diarrhea, were consistent with this assessment.

Bacillus cereus bacteria are one of the leading causes of food poisoning, second only to Salmonella. Bacillus cereus is common in the environment, in feces, and soil, so it can easily contaminate food. They can exist in spore form and are resistant to high temperatures.

Bacillus cereus grows best between 4 and 48 degrees Celsius, and multiplies between 28 and 35 degrees Celsius. Food contaminated with toxins from this bacteria often causes two types of poisoning. The first type causes nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain, with a rapid onset within 6 hours of eating. The second type occurs more slowly, between 6 and 15 hours, causing diarrhea when the bacteria are in the intestines.

The Director of Vinh Phuc Department of Health said that he has actively inspected kitchens and promoted food safety but "cannot check all the food going around". For example, the company above ordered vegetables for the kitchen but bought them at the market. The bean sprout sour soup contaminated with bacteria had ingredients including bean sprouts, green onions, coriander, water and sour fruit... When the authorities inspected, the kitchen representative said that when preparing it, they were short 6 kg of bean sprouts so they went to the market to buy more, leading to an unclean food source.

"This is a loophole, we are continuing to trace the origin," Mr. Trung said, adding that the investigation showed that the water source used to process food "has no problem".

Mr. Nguyen Hung Long, Deputy Director of the Food Safety Department, Ministry of Health, also acknowledged that the results of tracing the origin of raw materials showed that many foods were purchased by collective kitchens from suppliers, but when tracing to the suppliers, it was discovered that they were purchased at unlicensed markets and that their quality was not controlled.

The Food Safety Department recorded 11 food poisoning cases in the first 5 months of this year, poisoning 1,241 people, with no deaths. The direct cause of poisoning was mainly due to microbial contamination, but the causes have not been fully determined because food samples could not be taken for testing.