Staph found in school meals linked to mass food poisoning
Strains of the staphylococcus bacteria have been detected in samples of school lunches that allegedly caused mass food poisoning among dozens of primary schoolchildren in the city of Lamia last week.
According to state broadcaster ERT, staph was identified in ten food samples sent to the regional National Public Health Organization laboratory in Thessaly.
According to the Mayo Clinic, staph bacteria are one of the most common causes of food poisoning. The bacteria multiply in food and produce toxins that make people sick. Symptoms come on quickly, usually within hours of eating contaminated food. Symptoms usually disappear quickly, too, often lasting just half a day.
Earlier, a Supreme Court prosecutor ordered colleagues in Lamia to investigate the causes of a fire that completely destroyed the factory of the catering company linked to the food poisoning outbreak.
The Giannitsis factory, which was located in an industrial part of the Central Greece city, was completely gutted in a fire on Sunday evening.
On Friday, the company admitted that it was aware of a number of primary schoolchildren had become infected with gastroenteritis after allegedly eating one of its school meals and said that it had submitted samples of the meal, of which 2033 portions had been prepared, for laboratory analysis.
