All 64 kindergartens, elementary, and middle schools plus 72 private preschool classes in Ba Dinh District, Hanoi were cleaned up and disinfected on Tuesday afternoon, after several elementary students in the area suffered from an intestinal infection.

The disinfection operations were conducted as required by the district’s education and training sub-department, the Vietnam News Agency reported.

Last Friday, more than 1,100 students from the Thanh Cong B Elementary School were served with pasta and sausage during school lunch and fresh bread as a snack in the afternoon.

By 10:00 pm on Sunday, the parents of 24 students from different classes informed the school that they developed symptoms such as diarrhea, abdominal pain, and vomiting, with 10 of them seeking medical attention and two being hospitalized.

The two were later discharged from hospital and are in stable condition.

Pham Minh Thao, head of the Thanh Cong B Elementary School, said it remained unknown whether these students’ symptoms were linked to their Friday school meals or not, since they did not have school meals on Saturday and Sunday.

The Ba Dinh administration asked the school to keep monitoring the health condition of these students.

The local education and health authorities were told to propose measures to intensively control and promptly detect the use of unsafe food at food businesses; to tackle violators of food hygiene and safety regulations; and publish their names on mass media.

The education authority also has to ask the school management boards and parents to closely supervise the school meal distributors’ compliance with food hygiene and safety regulations.

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