A first-grade boy died on the way to another hospital on Sunday morning, one of the 270 students who had been hospitalized due to food poisoning following their lunch at the K-12 iSchool Nha Trang in Khanh Hoa Province, south-central Vietnam, on Friday.

The boy, who was born to a foreign father and a Vietnamese mother, was taken by his family to a hospital in Nha Trang City before being transferred to Khanh Hoa General Hospital on Saturday afternoon due to his serious complications.

He had to be moved to Ho Chi Minh City for more specialized treatment as his condition worsened.

He passed away in neighboring Ninh Thuan Province during the second transfer, according to Pham Huu Binh, principal of the iSchool Nha Trang, where the child was enrolled.

Binh offered his condolences to the deceased boy’s family and delivered an apology on behalf of the school to all the parents of its students during a meeting on Sunday afternoon. 

Some 840 out of the iSchool Nha Trang’s 1,328 students paid for daily lunch service and had the meals there at noon on Friday.

About 270 of them felt unwell after the lunch and required hospitalization.

While an inspection conducted by a delegation of multiple agencies on the same day showed that the catering service that the school outsourced met all food safety requirements, school principal Binh said at Sunday afternoon’s meeting that police were working with the catering provider for an investigation into the case.

Authorities are examining the samples of the dishes given to the students on Friday to find out the cause of food poisoning, with the results set to come out on Wednesday.

In the meantime, the service is suspended until further notice.

By Monday morning, no other students that suffered from the food poisoning incident developed severe illnesses, according to Bui Xuan Minh, director of the Department of Health of Khanh Hoa.

Nguyen Hoang Group, an education service provider in Vietnam, which owns the K-12 international integrated iSchool system, also invited three medical experts on the same morning to join hands with the Khanh Hoa health authorities in treating the afflicted students.

The iSchool system was established in 2008 and has been expanded to 14 provinces and cities across the country, according to its website.

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