BGN Reveals Causes Of Mass Poisoning Of Hundreds Of Students In Banggai: Fish Supply Replaced

The meeting of the Head of BGN with Commission IX of the DPR. Photo: Nailin/VOI

JAKARTA - Head of the National Nutrition Agency (BGN) Dadan Hindayana revealed the cause of mass poisoning that befell hundreds of students in Banggai Regency, Central Sulawesi. According to him, the case was triggered by a change in suppliers of skipjack fish raw materials whose quality was not as good as the old supplier.

"The biggest one is related to the incident in the third region, this is in Banggai, which amounts to approximately 330 people. The cause is due to the replacement of the supplier. So the menu served is skipjack fish. The old supplier is used to supply good quality skipjack fish," said Dadan in a meeting with Commission IX of the DPR at the Parliament Complex, Senayan, Jakarta, Wednesday, October 1.

Dadan added that supplier changes were made to accommodate potential local resources. However, the quality of raw materials from new suppliers has not been able to match the previous standards, causing health problems for hundreds of beneficiaries.

"It seems that the quality of the supplier of raw materials has not been able to match the old suppliers, so there is a disturbance related to allergies to beneficiaries that reach 338 people," he said.

As is known, as many as 314 elementary to high school students in Banggai Islands Regency (Bangkep) were suspected of being poisoned after eating a free nutritious food menu (MBG) in the form of tuna fried sauce.

Dadan revealed that similar incidents in a number of areas in the last two months were also triggered by violations of standard operating procedures (SOP) for the kitchen providing nutrition (SPPG). One of them is related to storage time and food distribution.

"We can identify that the incident on average because the SOP that we set was not carefully adhered to. For example, the purchase of raw materials that should have been H-2, but some bought H-4. Then we also set something, the cooking process until delivery is no more than 6 hours, the optimum is 4 hours," said Dadan.

He gave an example, in the case in Bandung there was a provider who had been cooking since 09.00, but the new delivery was made up to 12 hours later.

For this incident, BGN gave strict sanctions to SPPG who were proven to have violated the rules, ranging from temporary suspension to improving the work system and waiting for the results of the investigation.

"We will temporarily close until all improvement processes are carried out, and they must also start mitigating the trauma that arises to beneficiaries. Therefore, the temporary closure is unlimited, depending on the speed of the SPPG being able to make adjustments and also waiting for the results of the investigation," he said.