Cooks faint after eating mid-day meal in Madhepura school

In yet another incident of suspected contamination, two women who cooked mid-day meals for students of a government middle school in Bihar's Madhepura district fainted after eating the food on Thursday.

Rita Devi and Renu Devi had cooked the food for the school situated at Khar village in Gamariah block of the district, 21 km from Madhepura, police said. The school principal had ordered that the food be thrown away following complaints by students that it had foul smell.

But the two cooks ate it insisting that the food was hygienic and fainted after sometime.  None of the students ate the food, police said.  District Magistrate Upendra Kumar said the matter was being investigated. Police said the two cooks were taken to a health centre at Gamariah after they fainted.

This is the third incident in as many days of people falling ill after eating mid-day meal in Bihar. In Saran district, contaminated mid-day meal given to children of a school on Tuesday claimed the lives of 23 of them, while on Wednesday 50 others fell ill after eating food served to them in a Madhubani school.