The Taipei City Government is to allocate nearly NT$45 million (US$1.40 million) for additional tests and new equipment following a series of recent food poisoning outbreaks, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said Thursday.
At a briefing at the city council, Chiang said the amount would be used to ramp up examinations, with about NT$38.5 million, or 86.5 percent of the budget, going toward the purchase of new equipment.
The government plans to establish a five-member examination group for 11 foodborne diseases, such as bongkrek acid, norovirus and beta-nitro propionicacid, he said, adding that it would also launch an examination project capable of analyzing 800 to 1,000 samples a year.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
The budget comes from the limited resources of Taipei’s health department, which has only 14 staffers in charge of food testing. In the event of a food poisoning outbreak, they would have to stop their operations of other examination equipment to aid in emergency testing, Chiang said.
These measures were taken in response to several food poisoning outbreaks from late last month, led by the deadly case of a branch of Malaysian restaurant Polam Kopitiam in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義), the first domestic case induced by a rare toxin called bongkrek acid.
A total of 23 people in Taipei have been affected in the case as of Wednesday last week, including two deaths and 21 hospitalizations, 16 of whom have been discharged, Chiang said.
In addition, Polam International Co, which runs the restaurant chain, has been fined NT$3.5 million, mainly due to the lack of product liability insurance, Chiang said.
Following the Polam Kopitiam case were two restaurants in the same building in the Ximending (西門町) shopping district run by Wowprime Corp and Bafang Dumpling in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投).
The Wowprime case has seen 155 people seek medical attention, displaying symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea as of yesterday.
Both restaurants have been temporarily closed since Saturday last week, the day the case was first reported.
Chiang said no anomalies were detected by the Taipei Water Department and Department of Environmental Protection, which sampled and tested the building’s water source and the water supply from the building’s water dispensers.
Meanwhile, Wowprime apologized to its customers and staffers and announced that it would compensate those involved.
In addition to making phone calls to customers who visited the two restaurants between April 2 and Saturday last week, the company said they would all receive full refunds with receipts.
The company will cover all medical expenses between April 2 and 11 of those involved as long as they provide receipts, and it will also offer compensation payment with indefinite amounts based on each case, it said.
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