61 Suspected Food Poisoning Cases Reported at Samsung Electronics Gwangju Plant

Health Authorities Also Conduct COVID-19 Testing

[Asia Economy Reporter Ki-min Lee] Amid the outbreak of collective food poisoning symptoms at Samsung Electronics' Gwangju plant, health authorities have launched an epidemiological investigation.

According to Gwangju City and industry sources on the 4th, some employees working at Samsung Electronics' Gwangju plant reported symptoms such as diarrhea after having lunch at the group cafeteria the previous day.

The number of identified symptomatic individuals so far is 61. The number of people who ate at the time was 1,300 in Cafeteria 1, 1,077 in Cafeteria 2, and 462 in Cafeteria 3, totaling 2,839.

Among them, 24, 29, and 8 people in each cafeteria respectively showed symptoms such as diarrhea, hives, and nausea.

Health authorities have requested the City Health and Environment Research Institute to test 87 human specimens, as well as 436 samples including preserved food and environmental specimens.

The authorities expect that the bacterial culture tests and other analyses will take 2 to 6 days.

The authorities plan to identify any cases with COVID-19 symptoms among the symptomatic individuals and collect specimens accordingly.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.