A fourth person has died from bongkrek acid poisoning linked to the Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said yesterday, as two other people remain seriously ill in hospital.
The first death was reported on March 24. The man had been 39 years old and had eaten at the restaurant on March 22. As more cases of suspected food poisoning involving people who had eaten at the restaurant were reported by hospitals on March 26, the ministry and the Taipei Department of Health launched an investigation.
The Food and Drug Administration on March 27 listed the case as a major food poisoning outbreak, and confirmed that a 66-year-old man had also died.
Photo: Kan Meng-lin, Taipei Times
Bongkrek acid was later found in samples of blood taken from those who had died and several people who had fallen ill after eating at the restaurant from March 19 to 24. A swab taken from the hands of a cook who worked at the restaurant on those days also tested positive for bongkrek acid.
As of Friday last week, the last day that the Centers for Disease Control accepted reports of suspected food poisoning from Polam Kopitiam, 35 cases had been linked to the outbreak, including the two deaths, four people who were in intensive care and 29 who were not hospitalized or had returned home.
A 40-year-old man who was on life support with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation died of multiple organ failure on Saturday last week.
Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) yesterday said that a 40-year-old woman who was in intensive care for about a month died of multiple organ failure early yesterday morning.
Taipei Department of Health Commissioner Chen Yen-yuan (陳彥元) said she had a serious lung infection and septic shock, and her condition had worsened over the past few days, so the hospital had told her family that the condition was irreversible.
As the woman had signed a do-not-resuscitate order, she died at about 3am yesterday, he said.
Two people are still in hospital. One with decreased consciousness and an infection, who is being evaluated for a liver transplant, and another who has undergone a liver transplant and is already improving, Chen said.
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