Over 80 children younger than 10 who attended Sunny Side Day Care Center in Montgomery are recovering from food poisoning, only one remains hospitalized but the child is expected to be going home soon.
In a conference on Wednesday afternoon, Dr. Donald Williamson, spokesman of the Alabama Department of Public Health, revealed that the students were showing signs of illness, which included vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, abdominal pain, sluggishness and other symptoms on Tuesday around 3 p.m.
Following the incident, the children were taken to emergency rooms at Baptist Health Hospital and Jackson Hospital, Montgomery Advertiser reports.
Williamson admitted that the incident was most likely caused by a food product. The Alamaba Department of Public Health has launched an investigation and collected samples of food items for analysis. However, the department has not yet identified the particular food product or the specific agent that caused the food outbreak as the environmental analysis is not yet done.
However, Williamson is hopeful that they will receive the complete analysis on Thursday morning.
Sunny Side Day Care Center has two campuses located on Norman Bridge Road and South Court Street. Both day care center will be closed until the investigation is complete since children from both branches were sick, AL.com has learned.
Williamson explained that food borne illnesses such as this are common. Sometimes there are only two or three victims, at times there is an outbreak, depending on the number of people who partake the contaminated food. He explained that this also depends on the person as some people are more susceptible to such organisms.
"So it's not uncommon to have a food outbreak." Williamson said. "This is a larger one than we have seen recently and in an unfortunate setting where it is affecting younger children. But 35 is not an overly big number in the grand scheme of things. We work church social outbreaks all the time, all year long."
At the moment while the department has not yet determined if the illness is contagious, Williamson is urging the parents to keep their sick children at home and watch over them until they are symptom-free for 24 hours.
"Although we realize this will be inconvenient for families, caution is the appropriate public health prevention measure at this time," the doctor said. "We urge all parents to follow guidelines for child care admittance, such as being free of fever and other symptoms for 24 hours before returning to day care."
In a report from AL.com, another press conference will be held on Thursday and the Alabama Department of Health is expected to give their updates on the investigation.
