12 poisoned by sticky rice dumplings with snail meat, leading to 3 deaths
On Wednesday (18 Sept), a mass poisoning reportedly occurred in Jinfeng, Taitung, Taiwan, involving 12 people who had consumed sticky rice dumplings filled with snail meat.
The incident resulted in three deaths, four people in critical condition, and five others hospitalised for observation, reported Taiwanese news outlet ETtoday新聞雲.
Source: ETtoday
A photo of the sticky rice dumpling shared online revealed that it was filled with snail meat, bamboo shoots, pork, and millet flour.
Food served to victims during funeral
According to community members, an elderly woman named Liu (name transliterated from Chinese) made the sticky rice dumplings with snail meat and ate them herself on Tuesday (17 Sept).
She subsequently experienced unpleasant symptoms and died after being hospitalised.
Following her death, friends and relatives gathered at Ms Liu’s home to attend the funeral.
Unaware of the situation, they were served the sticky rice dumplings with snail meat, which led to further cases of poisoning among them.
Source: ETtoday
Initial police investigations revealed that the snail meat was provided by a man from the community named Li (name transliterated from Chinese), who had claimed he collected the snails from the farmland.
He has since been brought in for questioning.
All remaining rice dumplings and their ingredients have also been sent for further investigation.
Taro stems suspected
According to 8world News, Dr Huang Gao-bin, Deputy Director of the Infection Control Center at China Medical University Hospital in Taiwan, believed the case was unrelated to snail parasites, as these parasites have an incubation period of two to three weeks before symptoms appear.
He noted that the individuals had consumed taro stems. He suspected that Ms Liu could have mistakenly used “giant taro”, which, if ingested in its raw state, can lead to poisoning with immediate symptoms.
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Featured image adapted from ETtoday.
