Staff Reporter
SOME 83 students and teachers from a secondary school in Malaga were struck down with food poisoning this week, after eating food at the canteen. They were left with symptoms such as high fevers and diarrhoea.
The outbreak took place at the Salvador Rueda school on Spain’s Costa del Sol.
The centre will now be subject to an inspection by the Andalucia region’s health and consumer department in order to determine the cause.
The school told local media that there were a ‘significant’ number of students affected, who were aged between 12 and 17, as well as members of staff.
The company that prepares school lunches at the education centre has been notified, while an epidemiological protocol for such cases was also put into place.
For now, the school canteen has been closed until it can be properly inspected and samples taken.
Some of the affected students were able to return to school on Friday, according to a report in Malaga Hoy.
The condition of the victims was being monitored, and all were reported to be doing well.
None required hospital treatment, but many had turned up at the Tiro de Pichon healthcare centre, located near the school, presenting symptoms consistent with gastroenteritis.
The apparent food-poisoning outbreak comes in the wake of a similar case detected among on-call doctors at Malaga’s Hospital Regional just a few months ago.
In that incident, there were around a dozen confirmed cases and several more that were placed under observation.
Last year, a total of 498 people suffered food poisoning in Malaga province, according to Malaga Hoy, with three hospitalisations but no deaths.
Eggs, meats and sauces were the most common cause of such outbreaks.
