47 students of girls’ residential school/college hospitalised

Kakinada: On Tuesday, 47 female students from Dr B R Ambedkar Girls’ Residential School/College in Yeleswaram fell suddenly ill.

The students began experiencing symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhoea in the morning. They were all rushed to the Yeleswaram community health centre for treatment.

On learning about the incident, District Collector Sagili Shan Mohan alerted officials from the departments of Medical and Health, Revenue, RWS and Food Safety. Preliminary investigations by the authorities suggest that food poisoning was the likely cause for the students’ illness.

Collector Shan Mohan and Prathipadu MLA Varupula Satya Prabha visited the students who are receiving treatment at the Yeleswaram area hospital. They interacted with the students to know about their health condition.

Later, MLA Satya Prabha, Collector Shan Mohan and officials from the Medical and Health department inspected the residential school/college’s hostel and kitchen. The Collector directed the officials to collect samples of drinking water and food items from the hostel for testing.

He said that all the students who fell ill due to consumption of contaminated food are safe and there is no need for parents to worry. The Collector instructed officials to maintain cleanliness and ensure provision of safe drinking water in hostels to prevent such incidents in future.

Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu and Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan directed the authorities to see that no student should suffer any further issues.

Prathipadu MLA Varupula Sathya Prabha emphasised the need for vigilance by authorities to prevent recurrence of such incidents in hostels.

The district medical and health department officials including Dr J Narasimha Naik, DCHS Dr Swapna, Yeleswaram MPP Gollapalli Narasimha Murthy, Commissioner K Sivaprasad and tahsildar R V Venkateswara Rao, were involved in addressing the situation.