MP: 5 children die of suspected food poisoning at Indore shelter home; 38 hospitalised

PUNE: Two more children have died in the incident of suspected food poisoning at Indore's Shri Yugpurush Dham Baudhik Vikas Kendra, raising the toll to five, authorities said on Wednesday. The number of children who are undergoing treatment for symptoms of food poisoning has also gone up to 38, with four of them in critical condition, district collector Asheesh Singh said on Wednesday.

All the children are undergoing treatment at Government Chacha Nehru Hospital in the city and four of them have been admitted to the Intensive Care Unit ward. Two more children were reported dead on Tuesday. Previously on July 1, two children were reported to have died, while two children were reported dead on June 30.

Collector Asheesh Singh said, "A total of 38 children are undergoing treatment and of these four are admitted in the ICU ward. We will keep a close eye at the ashram for the next 48 hours if any symptoms are found in any children, they will be admitted to the hospital." "The samples collected from the spot and were sent for the examination, its report will be received from today onwards. After that, we will be able to ascertain the reason for the incident. Two children died on Tuesday and two children died on Monday due to the infection and 38 are undergoing treatment," he said.

An investigation committee has been constituted to probe the incident is investigating the matter, he added. Earlier, the Collector said that one child had died on June 30 and prime facie it appeared that he did not die due to the infection though the postmortem report was awaited.

State Ministers Kailash Vijayvargiya and Tulsi Silavat visted the children in the hospital on Tuesday night. Vijayvargiya told mediapersons, "All the children in the ashram are mentally underdeveloped and handicapped. This ashram has children from across Madhya Pradesh. It is the only such institution and they are doing good work. But the reasons as to why this happened are being investigated. Doctors have been talked to. Most of the children suffer from diarrhoea. Children get diarrhoea in this season. Water samples have been taken there, their food samples have been collected."

"The Chief Minister has sent me and Tulsi Silawat here, we have instructed the Collector and Commissioner to prepare a complete master plan of the institution to develop it. We will upgrade the living standard and improve the food quality there, so that this incident does not happen again." he said. There are about 200 children living in the ashram. It is operated by an NGO and children with disabilities and orphans used to live here. Their age ranges from five years to 15 years. (ANI)