eachers of early childhood education programs (PAUD) and kindergartens from Wonogiri, Central Java, were rushed to the hospital on Monday due to suspected food poisoning.
As of Tuesday afternoon, 24 teachers had been taken to three hospitals.
The incident occurred during a two-day workshop on improving the quality of education, held at the Indonesian Teachers Association (PGRI) building starting from Monday.
The source of the food poisoning remains unknown because of the wide variety of dishes and snacks served during the event.
“We don’t want to speculate about the cause of the food poisoning. What I can confirm is that dozens of workshop participants felt dizzy, fainted, vomited and suffered from diarrhea, starting from Monday evening to Tuesday afternoon,” Sri Mulyati, the Wonogiri Education Agency’s kindergarten and elementary school division head, said on Tuesday.
Sri said the workshop’s organizing committee had ordered the food from a catering service that has been a long-standing partner of the agency.
Separately, the owner of the catering company, Siti Muslihah, said that on Monday, she prepared 800 nasi kotak (box meals) for the workshop participants and those of another event in a separate location. Only participants of the workshop suffered food poisoning, although they all ate the same food, she claimed.
The Wonogiri Health Agency’s disease control and environmental health division head, Suprio Heryanto, suspects that the incident may have been caused by bacteria contamination.
The agency was still waiting for the results of laboratory testing, he said. (ebf)
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