After a mystery illness in Eluru affected about 600 people, food safety and municipal corporation authorities in Andhra Pradesh conducted surprise raids on various food outlets, supermarkets and street food vendors on Friday. The inspections were carried out in various districts including Guntur, Krishna, East Godavari and others after orders were passed by Deputy Chief Minister Alla Krishna Srinivas, who is also the Health Minister.
Speaking to The News Minute, S Srinivas, Gazetted Food Inspector from Preventive Medicine Department in West Godavari said, “Inspections were conducted on Friday. Our team has gone to a supermarket, where we have found stale vegetables and damaged dal and other items. We have sent those samples to a Hyderabad lab and we are waiting for the results to come. After the result, action would be taken on all stores flouting norms.”
The official further added that they have also found food items being sold without proper labels, which should reveal mandatory information about the product such as the expiry date and the manufacturing date.
Likewise, food safety officials have gone to various stores and have conducted the inspections and have sent samples to a lab to check for adulteration. According to media reports, about 50 vehicles selling street food have been seized for selling adulterated food to customers apart from tonnes of stale food being destroyed.Street vendors who were caught selling the adulterated food were fined Rs 500 by officials.
As reported earlier by TNM, it was revealed that pesticide residues could have been the cause of the ‘mystery’ illness that struck Eluru. Because of this illness, several people in Eluru town suffered convulsions along with other symptoms. About 600 people were affected and one person died. KA Kondala Rao, Eluru Municipal health officer was quoted as saying that top institutes were trying to decode the cause of the disease and make further breakthroughs.