More than 150 Filipino workers of a sub-contracting company were admitted to Al Khor Hospital due to food poisoning after eating beef macaroni during an Eid feast on Tuesday, the Philippine Embassy in Qatar said yesterday.
The Philippine Ambassador, Crescente Relacion, said the 153 workers were released 12 hours later, after they had recovered from minor sickness. “They are all okay now and no untoward incident happened,” he said.
The workers were rushed to the hospital and were admitted at 2pm on Tuesday but were discharged at around 2am the following day after doctors found the patients’ condition to be normal.
Relacion had earlier instructed officials in the Philippine Overseas Labour Office (POLO) to look into the case after receiving a report from Welfare Officer Sitti Jaafar about the incident. A team was sent to the hospital to check on the condition of the workers.
According to Jaafar, 136 of the affected workers suffered from vomiting and loose bowel movement while the rest had stomach pain after consuming the beef macaroni during a lunch party to celebrate Eid Al Adha.
She said the National Health Authority was looking into the cause of the incident based on the results of stool examinations done by the infection control unit of the communicable diseases department of the hospital.
The manager of the company told Jaafar that they were dispatching a team to check on the condition of the workers at their accommodation and at the same time investigate how the food in question was prepared by the company’s caterer.
Jaafar said since Wednesday POLO had been in touch with the hospital authorities to keep abreast of the condition of the workers, and she had been told they were discharged since they were suffering from only minor ailments and no one had experienced dehydration.
THE PENINSULA