13 school kids fall sick after eating mushrooms they cooked at ICDS centre in Bengal

Kolkata, July 21
As many as 13 school kids fell sick at a village in West Bengal's Bankura district after consuming mushrooms which they cooked at an Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) centre.

They were first taken to the Raipur Rural Hospital with symptoms of food poisoning like vomiting and severe stomach ache. However, after the condition of some of them deteriorated, they were shifted to the Bankura Sammilani Medical College & Hospital where their condition has improved, sources said.

It is learnt that the mushrooms they ate were collected from a local field and taking advantage of the staff at the ICDS kitchen, the kids themselves cooked and consumed them.

Doctors suspect that the kids picked up infected mushrooms, which resulted in food poisoning.

The parents of the kids, however, have complained about negligence on the part of the authorities at the ICDS centre, where the kids were allowed to cook mushrooms they picked from a local field.

They also claimed that the ICDS centre neither has any boundary wall, nor does the kitchen have a proper door locking system.