More than 400 people in Vietnam’s central highlands province of Gia Lai, were hospitalized on May 31 due to food poisoning, the www.vnexpress.net [1] online newspaper reported June 1. The victims suffered from symptoms of stomachache, vomiting and diarrhea after eating buffalo and cow meat at a local festival. Local health experts attributed the incident to the unhygienic water and tainted buffalo and cow meat and took the food samples for tests in a Ho Chi Minh City hospital. Vietnam reportedly witnessed 147 food poisoning cases in 2009, affecting 5,026 people and killing 33 others. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that the Southeast Asian country loses VND340 billion ($20 million) a year on the issues.
