Over 60 students at Kalyet Secondary School in Kericho were rushed to hospital on Monday after they complained of stomach pains that persisted for hours after eating suspected contaminated food.
The students are reported to have eaten a mixture of beans and maize on Sunday during lunchtime, after which some of them began complaining of stomach pains.
The first cohort of 47 students, whose symptoms had persisted, was rushed to the Londiani Sub County Hospital on Monday morning, including 9 boys and 38 girls.
The majority of them are reported to have shown early vomiting symptoms that persisted overnight. Authorities at the hospital, however, confirmed that they did all they could to ensure the students were promptly attended to.
Local leaders and officials from Kenya Red Cross responding to victims during a recent incident at Londiani Hospital in Kericho County.
Joseph Cherorot
The hospital, however, warned that it risked running out of capacity to attend to the students, should the cases increase, due to what they termed as a lack of space to manage the situation.
”We have managed to treat all of them, and all are stable after receiving medications ranging from antibiotics to fluids,” a medical superintendent at the facility told the press.
”The challenge we have had with handling most of them is space. Our outpatient department is severely over-utilised, especially with these mass incidents, and we would appeal for assistance with the expansion process,” he added.
This is the second incident to hit the county within two weeks, following the hospitalisation of over 73 patients on 19 January after consuming contaminated locally fermented milk, commonly known as Mursik.
The 73 people, including children from Masaita villages in Kericho County, were reported to have consumed the contaminated milk while attending a church graduation ceremony.
Cases of food poisoning from Mursik and other foods have been a persistent issue for medical authorities in the greater Rift Valley region.
In 2020, 20 people, including eight children, were hospitalised after consuming contaminated Mursik in Mt. Elgon, Bungoma.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that each year, approximately 600 million people worldwide—nearly one in ten—fall ill from consuming contaminated food, resulting in 420,000 deaths annually.
Alarmingly, 40 per cent of those affected by foodborne diseases are children under the age of five, with 125,000 fatalities recorded globally every year.
An image of the World Health Organization (WHO) building.
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