Some people developed severe exhaustion and pain shortly after eating at the restaurant. They were taken to hospital, where their symptoms were diagnosed as food poisoning.
On receiving a report about the incident, police, municipal and health officials jointly raided the place and discovered a number of hygienic violations such as careless handling of food. They also seized one-day-old cooked food.
In addition, there were violations of building specifications. Food samples were sent for testing and workers were ordered to undergo hygienic checks. They closed the restaurant for five days, until the test reports would be available.
The municipality called on all restaurants and other eateries to strictly maintain hygienic specifications. It requested eatery customers to call 940 when they found any violations. The health department has been issuing warnings against food poisoning since the beginning of the summer, because food can easily rot with the exposure to air.
According to consultant of internal medicine Fatimah Muhammad, cooked food, water, and vegetables are rapidly infected by harmful bacteria and fungus during summer, which leads to food poisoning. The symptoms are mostly diarrhea and inflated abdomen. High temperature and stomach pain may also result from eating unhygienic food, she said.
“The best way to avoid food poisoning is to eat or buy food from reliable outlets, avoid easily perishable food such as dishes containing mayonnaise and eggs, and never to eat ice creams or other eatables sold by hawkers,” she said.
She also recommended families not to eat from wayside restaurants. She said travelers could better eat food that did not require cooking or refrigeration.
There have been many reports of food poisoning since the beginning of summer, such as 217 food poisoning cases in Jazan last week, and hospitalization of 52 people after eating in a restaurant in Al-Qurayyat in the Northern Border Province.
In a move to contain food poisoning in vegetables during summer, a department related to the government decided to send daily samples of vegetable consignments entering main markets for testing. The municipal authorities also decided to beef up the general neatness in vegetable markets and to take steps to stop the practice of irrigating vegetable farms with sewage.
