8-year-old girl dies of ‘food poisoning’ as 35 students of Chhattisgarh residential school fall ill

In the early hours of Monday, some students at Rukhmini Ashram school in Dhanora village started complaining of stomach pain and vomiting.

After being admitted to the Bijapur district hospital by around 11 am, many of the students had their vomiting brought under control by the doctors.

An eight-year-old girl died late on Monday night, hours after she and 34 other students of a government-aided residential school in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district were admitted to hospital over suspected food poisoning.

In the early hours of Monday, some students at Rukhmini Ashram school in Dhanora village started complaining of stomach pain and vomiting. In the morning, 35 of the students were taken to the local health centre, from where they were referred to the district hospital.

After being admitted to the Bijapur district hospital by around 11 am, many of the students had their vomiting brought under control by the doctors.

At around 10 pm on Monday, one of the students, Shivani Telam, was referred to a different hospital in Jagdalpur city of Bastar district, about 286 km away. Shivani died at around midnight while being taken to Jagdalpur in an ambulance.

Nine other children are in the ICU.

Bijapur Collector Sambit Mishra told The Indian Express, “We are awaiting the postmortem report to know the exact cause of death. We will take appropriate action.”

A doctor at the district hospital said they were still trying to determine what had caused the children to fall ill. “We could not collect the samples of the food eaten by the children, except for the rice. During the day (on Sunday), they ate kheer, puri, chana and chole. They had eaten paneer at night, which could have gone bad,” the doctor said.

“Several children also had fever, so we also tested them for malaria, but they tested negative,” he said.

District Chief Medical and Health Officer Dr B R Pujari said, “It could be something beyond food poisoning. We could not get any samples of the food… but we will find out what went wrong.”

Their school had a total of 88 students studying and staying there. It was established in 1976, is run by an NGO, and is aided by the government.