Philippines ‘poison’ sweets sicken nearly 2,000 people

The number of people who have fallen ill after eating a batch of ‘poisoned’ candy in the Philippines has risen to nearly 2,000, authorities said on Monday as they worked to identify the source of the contamination.

At least 1,925 people in the southern Philippines, most of them schoolchildren, were sick after eating the fruit-flavoured candy and 66 remain hospitalised, health department spokesman Lyndon Lee Suy said. The department’s experts “are trying to investigate and consider all possible causes. It could be intentional, it could be mishandling,” he told AFP.

The victims complained of stomach cramps, diarrhoea, vomiting and headaches after consuming the <g data-gr-id="11">durian-</g>, mango- and mangosteen-flavoured treats that were sold by vendors outside schools. The number of people affected jumped by 600 from those initially reported when hospitals on the southern island of Mindanao began treating patients on Friday.