Number of students poisoned by school lunch exceeds 600

The number of students who suffered from food poisoning after eating school lunch in Mikkeli on Wednesday reached to more than 600 on Monday, said the city of Mikkeli in a press release.

Meanwhile, the emergency management team of the city held a meeting on Monday and reviewed the food poising among the students and staff members of different schools.

The Finnish Food Authority and the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) are conducting investigation to find out the reason behind the food poisoning.

The authorities collected samples from different foods and raw materials and sent to the laboratory for examination. The results of the examinations are expected to be ready by this week.

The authority conducted preliminary investigation into the incident from Thursday and talked to 2800 guardians of the students and 300 staff of the schools and knew that the symptom developed during and after taking the lunch on Wednesday.

The authority got information on Monday that more than 600 students and staff members were diagnosed with the food poisoning symptoms but most of the symptoms were mild.

In addition, about 661 students and 31 staff suffered from abdominal pain, 500 students and 23 staff felt nausea, 331 students and 13 staff headache, 85 students and one staff vomiting, 112 students and 12 staff diarrhea, 26 students and 1 staff fever, 86 students muscle pain and 52 students and five staff joint pain.

Blood also found in the stool of nine students and one staff.

Several syndromes were detected in the same person.

About half of the students got the first symptoms within one hour of eating the lunch while 75 percent got the symptoms within six hours.

About 16 percent, however, did not get the first symptoms until 12 hours after eating the lunch.

Initially the authorities suspected that eating tortillas in the school lunch was the reason behind the food poisoning.

More than 4,000 tortillas were prepared in Mikkeli's central kitchen and distributed to the schools around the city.

The authority on Monday also said that the source is unlikely to have been either the central kitchen or the kitchens of each of the individual schools.

The Mikkeli city reported the incident of food poisoning among the students on Friday.