Kerala: Nurse dies of food poisoning, many taken ill

The nurse, identified as Rashmi, 33, worked with the Orthopaedic Department of the hospital. A postmortem will be conducted on Tuesday to ascertain the cause of death, it is learnt.

State Food Safety Assistant Commissioner (Kottayam), Randeep C R, said Rashmi had eaten at the restaurant on December 29. The following day, he said, the department began receiving complaints of food poisoning cases from people who had eaten at the same restaurant. “The hotel was inspected and its licence was suspended,” Randeep said. “Prima facie we suspect mayonnaise had led to food poisoning. A detailed probe would be held by the department.”

Rashmi’s family told local media that she developed symptoms of food poisoning hours after eating at the restaurant and sought treatment. On Sunday, her condition deteriorated and she was put on life support at the medical college hospital.

In May last year, a 16-year-old girl had died and over a dozen people were hospitalised after suspected food poisoning in Kasaragod district after they ate shawarma from an eatery. In 2012, a youth had died of food poisoning from shawarma sold from a hotel in Thiruvananthapuram.