Hundreds Ill With E. Coli Symptoms

Contaminated school lunches may have sickened up to 1,228 elementary school children in central Japan since Friday, a health official said Sunday. Ninety-three of the children have been hospitalized.

Officials suspect children from 40 elementary schools in the city of Sakai were poisoned by E. coli - the same strain of bacteria suspected in hundreds of similar cases nationwide, including three deaths, since May.

The children’s symptoms include diarrhea and bloody stools, said Taro Yamakita, a health official in Sakai, 265 miles southwest of Tokyo.

E. coli often is carried by undercooked meat, but health officials say water, dairy products and poultry also are possible sources. The bacteria can cause hemolyticuremic syndrome, a complication characterized by kidney failure.

None of those hospitalized in the Sakai outbreak are considered gravely sick, Yamakita said.

Since May, health officials have struggled to explain outbreaks of food poisoning which have killed three children and had sickened about 1,600 people before the Sakai outbreak.