College girl’s death: Post-mortem report leaves ‘food poisoning’ angle in doubt

Kasaragod: The incident at Kasaragod on Saturday wherein a food-borne illness was believed to have claimed the life of a 19-year-old girl, Anju Sreeparvathy, assumed a new dimension with the police confirming that several findings in the post-mortem report of the forensic surgeon were inconsistent with the symptoms of classical food poisoning.

Anju Sreeparvathy, a college girl, from Perumbala near Kasaragod, died at a hospital in Mangaluru on Saturday. The death was initially suspected to be food poisoning from eating ‘Kuzhimanthi’ which she purchased online from a restaurant named Romansia at Kasaragod on December 31. Later, state Health Minister Veena George, had ordered a probe into the incident.

Vaibhav Saxena, Superintendent of Police, Kasaragod, who spoke to the media said that the post-mortem showed serious liver damage, suggestive of the presence of toxic substances which might not have been ingested through food.

Chemical analysis

“We will send the viscera samples for detailed chemical analysis, which alone can determine the nature of the toxin. The findings of the chemical analysis, when correlated with the preliminary evidence that the police have collected will provide clues as to how the woman died,” Mr. Saxena said.

Anju was believed to have developed symptoms of food-borne illness after she consumed the food that had been ordered in from a restaurant on December 31. Though she had been treated at a local private hospital, she died on Saturday morning. The district health administration, Kasaragod, had said that according to preliminary reports, the girl had died of multi-organ failure following sepsis.

No pathological evidence

Though the Food Safety authorities and the police moved to shut down the restaurant from where the food had been ordered and took three persons, including the food business owner, into custody, in the absence of any pathological evidence from the hospital where she was initially treated, the authorities had no clue as to the nature of the pathogen or the source of infection.

While the Food Safety wing has been focussing on conducting raids and shutting down food outlets for violating hygiene protocols or functioning without the mandatory licence, the actual focus should be on conducting scientific studies on the risk profiles of food generally served in eateries, it has been pointed out.

‘Identify food item’

Food safety experts have cautioned that while raids and punitive action against eateries are short-term regulatory measures, every food -borne illness episode should be immediately followed by a proper epidemiological investigation to identify the food item which might have caused the illness, how and at what point any contamination might have occurred and how soon the victim began experiencing symptoms of food-borne illnesses.

Unless more attention was paid to the scientific side of food and how bacteria or other pathogens act on food and the information is conveyed to the general public as well as those involved in preparing and selling food, kitchen practices will not change, they said.