Distribution of boxed long-life milk has been suspended at seven tessasan primary schools on Phuket from Friday awaiting results of tests on samples from Piboonsawaddee Primary


AN APPARENT outbreak of food poisoning put 12 young students from a Phuket primary school in hospital today.

Seventeen children complained of feeling sick after an early morning snack break during which they drank school-supplied milk.

The first children were taken to hospital around 9.30am.

Twelve were admitted to Vachira Hospital in Phuket City, where they were accommodated in beds and on temporary stretchers.

Doctors at the hospital expected to discharge 11 of the students late this afternoon and will keep one boy in overnight for observation.

Samples of the milk that the children were drinking during their snack break will be carefully checked by Public Health researchers.

All 17 students from Piboonsawaddee Primary School, not far from Provincial Hall in Phuket City, complained of stomach ache to teachers.

One of the students said he drank the long-life boxed milk as usual, then felt a stomach ache, and his friend felt the same.

A teacher said he thought the outbreak of illness was caused by the milk.

Mayor Somjai Suwansupana, of the Phuket City Municipality, which oversees the school, said the use-by date on the milk was not due to expire until November, and others, early next year.

She said the children had been supplied with the boxed long-life milk every school day since April.

There were 216 children in Grades 5 and 6 at the school and they all drank the same milk, but only one in five felt sick. Some were not sick enough to be taken to hospital.

Most of the other children in the school drank fresh milk.

''We will be waiting to hear the results from the Public Health checks,'' she said.


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