2 children die due to suspected food poisoning

Berhampur: Two children of a family died on Tuesday in Odisha's Ganjam district due to suspected food poisoning after apparently drinking spurious milk, police said.

Preliminary inquiry revealed that a three-year-old girl and her two-year old brother consumed milk before going to sleep on Monday night at their house in a village under Rambha police station area, police said.

Early next morning they complained of stomach pain and were rushed to a hospital, from where they were discharged after their condition improved.

Their condition, however, deteriorated after returning home and they started vomiting.

The children were taken to Chatrapur subdivisional hospital, where the doctors declared the boy as brought dead. The girl too died a little later, the police said.

The doctors who treated them suspect that their illness was due to food poisoning.

Their mother unable to bear the double tragedy took ill and was admitted to a hospital, where her condition was stated to be stable.

While the police suspect that the milk the children consumed may have been spurious, Rambha police station inspector in-charge Dipti Ranjan Behera said the exact cause of their deaths will be known after the autopsy.

A case of unnatural death has been registered and an investigation is on, Behera said. (PTI)