Around 400 children fall ill after eating free school meals in Indonesia’s Bengkulu

JAKARTA - Around 400 children have fallen ill after eating free school meals in Indonesia’s western Bengkulu Province, in the worst case of mass food poisoning to date linked to President Prabowo Subianto’s flagship food programme.

Mr Prabowo launched the programme of free meals for children and pregnant women in January, but the initiative has been marred by food poisoning across the archipelago, affecting hundreds of people.

In August, 365 people fell ill from free school meals in Central Java. According to local media reports, laboratory results indicated that the outbreak was a result of poor sanitation.

In Bengkulu, the children, aged from about four to 12, were rushed to a local hospital complaining of stomach pain on Aug 28, according to a video handout from the local government.

The authorities will launch an investigation into the cause of the illness, the province’s vice-governor Mian said.

“We will temporarily suspend operations at this kitchen while we investigate where the weaknesses lie. This is the domain of the BGN (National Nutrition Agency) investigation team and the authorities,” he said.

Mr Dadan Hindayana, chief of the National Nutrition Agency, which runs the programme, told Reuters the kitchen had only recently started operations, asking staff to evaluate services while waiting for the lab results of the food.

He did not immediately respond to a question about the root cause of the poisonings.

Since its launch, the free school meals programme has been rapidly expanded to reach over 20 million recipients, and authorities plan to reach 83 million recipients by year-end, budgeting a total cost of 171 trillion rupiah (S$13.3 billion) in 2025. REUTERS