A mass food poisoning outbreak in Chongzhou Experimental Primary School in Southwest China's Sichuan Province was the result of bacteria, said a medical report released by Chengdu city government.

Chongzhou is a city under the administration of Chengdu, provincial capital of Sichuan.

But the report, which was released late Sunday, did not specify the exact bacteria. "Medics are doing lab experiments and won't announce the result until tomorrow," Li Ke, an information officer for the city, told China Daily.

School authorities said that 45 pupils from grade one to grade six were hospitalized because of food poisoning after lunch on Friday, the first day of the new school year. But eyewitnesses and relatives of victims said that at least 300 students were receiving treatment.

"More than 100 students are receiving treatment at Chongzhou Municipal People's Hospital, while others are receiving treatment in the city's traditional Chinese medicine hospital, the hospital for women and children, or have gone to Chengdu and Wenjiang (a distant district of Chengdu) for treatment," said Han Ru, the mother of 10-year-old Wang Mengyuan.

At noon last Friday, Wang ate cold pork with sauce, ribs stewed with radish, fried cabbage and pumpkin soup. The next afternoon, she developed severe stomach ache and started vomiting. Her mother took her to a nearby hospital to get a check-up. "The doctor thought I had caught a cold and I went home after he prescribed me some medicine," Wang said.

But she developed a fever at night and her temperature rose to nearly 40 degrees Celsius. "After my daughter received a blood transfusion, she showed fewer fever symptoms so we left the hospital," Han said.

But the next morning, Wang started vomiting again and felt feverish, so her mother took her to Chongzhou People's Hospital.

"When we came to the hospital, we found makeshift beds in the corridor filled with pupils from my daughter's school," Han told China Daily.

Parents told Han that their children ate the same dishes for lunch as her daughter last Friday and were diagnosed as suffering from acute gastroenteritis resulting from food poisoning. They had symptoms of headache, fever, vomiting, stomach ache and low energy.

"The first students became ill on Saturday afternoon. But most student sought medical treatment on Sunday morning," said Fu Dachun, headmaster of the school.

Xiao Biyu, the school's deputy head, is in charge of the school dining-hall. "I didn't learn about the food poisoning incident until Sunday morning. I'm puzzled by it," she said.

Xiao said that nearly 800 of the school's 1,200 students had lunch on campus last Friday.

Xiao said that the dining hall is run by the school rather than outside contractors. All the employees have certificates of good health, she said.

The report from Chengdu city government said that the bacteria came from the cold pork with sauce.

Source: China Daily