Tamil Nadu: Health Minister Asks Public To Avoid Shawarma In Roadside Eateries After 3 Students Fall Sick Consuming It

Tamil Nadu Health Minister M Subramaniam has advised the public in the state to avoid eating Shawarma, a popular Levantine dish, Samayam reported.

The minister's advisory came after three students of Veterinary College and Research Institute students at Orathanadu, who consumed Shawarma at an eating joint nearby their hostel, fell ill due to food poisoning. The students fainted in their rooms after vomiting and a bout of diarrhoea. They were referred to Thanjavur Medical College Hospital for treatment.

The minister said that health authorities were mulling a ban on the making and sale of Shawarma prepared in unhygienic conditions.

The minister also encouraged people to consume food in accordance with local climatic conditions. The minister flagged risk of workers in food stalls lacking knowledge on proper method of preparation dishes like Shawarma.

The officials belonging to the Food Safety department had been conducting raids and seizing rotten food items at eateries in the wake of the death of a 16-year-old girl in Kerala's Kasaragod district. 58 others fell ill due to food poisoning. Pathogenic salmonella and shigella were later detected in the shawarma samples collected from an eatery

Several teams of officials belonging to the Food Safety and Drug Administration raided about 100 restaurants across the Madurai district since Wednesday. The teams found that few restaurants had stocked cooked chicken in refrigerators and were found to be non-permitted colouring agents in the preparation of chicken.

Around 10kg of stale chicken meat was seized and destroyed during the raids. Few restaurants serving non-vegetarian dishes were issued notices for violating food safety rules, including the stocking of stale meat.