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Health authorities to inspect school canteens

Health authorities to inspect school canteens

Updated: 2012-04-16 20:58

By Cheng Yingqi (chinadaily.com.cn)

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The State Food and Drug Administration released a notice on its website on April 16, urging local health authorities to conduct food safety inspections in school canteens.

The nationwide inspection comes after three food poisoning incidents in school canteens in Yunnan province over the past one and a half months.

On April 9, more than 360 students of the Dingla primary school had symptoms including fever, stomachache and diarrhea after eating lunch at the school canteen. The county government formed an investigation team to look into the incident and found the school canteen was run-ning without certification from the health department. Two responsible school principals were removed from their posts on April 13.

In addition, the provincial education department of Yunnan reported two other food-poisoning cases — one with 203 students falling ill after eating yolk pie the school distributed on March 13, the other with 183 students suspected to have food poisoned at school on April 11.

Chen Chunming, a well-known nutrition specialist, said most school kitchens in remote rural areas could not meet hygiene standards.

"To equip a standard kitchen is unaffordable for most rural schools, and there are no special standards set for rural school kitchens. The management of school kitchens is bad," she said.

Yunnan started a nutrition improvement project on March 1, in which the central government pays 3 yuan (47 cents) per day for each student. All three food poisoning incidents happened after that.

"The schools do not even have money to hire canteen staff. As a result, although the policy of the central government should benefit students, the effect was not so good because the fund does not cover the costs of operating the canteen," said Chen Xin, press officer of the Zhenxiong county government, where the 368 students were poisoned on April 9.

The notice of the food and drug administration said the inspection should include canteen certification, safety professionals, management on purchases and cooking, food additive use and disinfection.

Disqualified school canteens will be suspended until they meet health author-ity criteria.