Seven people have died while a dozen others have been hospitalized in separate food poisoning cases in the last four days in a northern Vietnamese province, with most of the victims having eaten Chinese candy before showing illness symptoms.

All victims were residents of a village in Ma Ly Chai Commune, a remote area bordering China, in Phong Tho District of Lai Chau Province.

The first deceased villager was Phu Van Leng, 60, who developed headache and nausea symptoms after having a meal with alcohol on February 10 and died that night.

His funeral was held the following day and lasted until Monday, with mourners treated to meals including rice, alcohol and a kind of Chinese candy.

On Monday, many villagers who had eaten the dishes at the funeral started to develop symptoms similar to Leng’s and six of them eventually passed away.

One of the six died en route to hospital at 10:00 pm yesterday.

In the meantime, four of the villagers have been admitted to the Lai Chau General Hospital, whereas eight others were rushed to the district’s infirmary.

All of those 18 hospitalized villagers had drunk a kind of alcohol bought from the nearby Si Lo Lau Commune and eaten the same Chinese candy at the funeral, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Lai Chau authorities cited autopsy results as saying that the villagers had all suffered food poisoning, while ruling out the possibility that they had been deliberately poisoned.

The Vietnam Food Administration under the Ministry of Health has sent a team of officials to Lai Chau to look into the mass deaths, the body’s chief Nguyen Thanh Phong confirmed to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Tuesday.

“This is a severe food poisoning case,” Phong said.

Doctor Do Van Giang, director of the Lai Chau General Hospital, said all four victims admitted to his clinic have started to recover, adding however that “those hospitalized in the district’s hospital will soon be transferred here.”

Doctors are taking samples from the patients for testing to identify the cause of poisoning, Giang said.

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