Panic prevailed on Thursday afternoon in Karnataka’s Koppal district after 40 students between standards 1 and 8 of a government school fell ill after consuming their midday meal. The students were shifted to the hospital after many of them started vomiting. According to the District Surgeon Dr Daanareddy, all the students of the Bevoor Primary and Middle School are out of danger and are responding well to treatment.
A dead lizard was found in the midday meal prepared in the school in Bevoor village in Yelburga taluk, Dr Daanareddy said. “They were initially admitted to the community health centre first and later transferred to the Koppal District Hospital. The food was prepared at the school itself and the midday meal preparation was not contracted to anyone,” Dr Daanareddy told TNM.
No complaint has been filed with the police.
In the recent past, there have been multiple instances of students falling ill after eating midday meals.
Thursday's incident comes less than a month of 10 students of a Bengaluru school were also taken ill after consuming their midday meal.
In December 2018 over 100 students belonging to two different schools in Ballari and Bagalkot districts had to be admitted to hospital on a single day after they consumed their midday meals.
In the biggest such case in 2014, more than 350 children of Government Urdu Higher Primary School in Bengaluru’s DJ Halli had fallen ill consuming their midday meal. On that occasion too, a dead lizard was found in the rice.