Milk downs 103 students in Negros Oriental

SAMPLE BOTTLE A sample of the bottled milk that elementary school students in Santa Catalina, Negros Oriental, drank before they turned ill on Thursday. —PHOTO COURTESY OF SANTA CATALINA POLICE STATION

DUMAGUETE CITY—Bottled milk given for free by the Department of Education (DepEd) during the resumption of in-person classes in Santa Catalina town in Negros Oriental left at least 103 students ill in different public elementary schools in the municipality on Thursday.

Jay Michael Dalisay, the medical technologist of the disease surveillance unit of the municipal health office, said the milk drank by young learners at the Sta. Catalina Central School at the town proper and five other village-based schools might be contaminated due to lack of proper temperature control while it was stored.

“These students who suffer from gastrointestinal illness—vomiting and experiencing stomachaches—are the ones who consumed the milk distributed yesterday (May 19),” Dalisay told the Inquirer on Friday.

CONTAMINATED? School children are being treated at a hospital in Santa Catalina, Negros Oriental in Thursday for vomiting and stomach ache after drinking suspected to be “contaminated” milk given for free from by the Department of Education as part of its feeding program. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SANTA CATALINA POLICE STATION

Feeding program

Of the 103 students who got sick, 61 were discharged on Thursday night and Friday morning.

As of 3:30 p.m. on Friday, 42 students remained at the district hospital in the nearby City of Bayawan since they were still showing signs of dehydration.

The milk, distributed as part of the school-based feeding program of DepEd, was given to students in Grades 1 and 2 of the Sta. Catalina Central School and those in the elementary schools in the villages of Cawitan, Alangilan, Tubod, Avocado and Kanggabok.

“Maybe not all supplies sent to these schools were contaminated. But the number of affected students is really high,” Dalisay said.

He said the collected milk samples would be sent to the Department of Health for a confirmatory test.

Fact finding

Negros Oriental Division Schools superintendent Senen Paulin on Friday said they were forming a fact-finding team to investigate the incident.

Paulin said the milk came from a local supplier in the province that had a contract with the National Dairy Authority (NDA).

“We were just like the receiving end here. This is an agency-to-agency procurement. NDA identified the local milk supplier and [the milk] was delivered to learners for consumption,” he said.

“Once the schools received the milk, they directly distributed these to the learners,” he added.

Paulin said a representative from the milk supplier went to the hospital on Thursday night and promised to provide cash assistance to the affected students.

He also assured the parents that “they will be spared from any expenses.”

READ: Suspected food poisoning downs 50 kids in Negros Oriental