The press service of the government stated that the number of casualties from the poisoning at the school in the Beshshoky residential area of the village of Mangistau, Munaily District has increased from 222 to 460 children, of whom 83 were hospitalised, 2 are in intensive care.
“The condition of all casualties is stable with a positive trend. Due to the improvement in the health of two children who were in intensive care, they are being transferred to a general ward”, the statement said.
An investigation is underway at the school where the poisoning occurred. Those responsible have been promised they will be held accountable. To strengthen measures for localising and eliminating the outbreak, specialists from the branch “Scientific and Practical Centre for Sanitary and Epidemiological Expertise and Monitoring” of the State Enterprise on the Right of Economic Management “National Centre for Public Health” have been sent to the region.
Furthermore, on the instructions of the head of the government, monitoring of compliance with sanitary and epidemiological requirements is planned in all school canteens across the country within a month.
At the same time, the name of the company that services the school canteen in the village of Mangistau, where primary school pupils were poisoned, has become known.
According to journalist “Kozachkov offside”, the canteen is serviced by Sole Trader “D Shakenova”.
“And this is not just a sole trader, but a veritable giant. On the government procurement website, the company has 224 contracts; only this year, dozens of agreements worth hundreds of millions of tenge have been concluded or extended”, the report said.
It is reported that the company's annual revenue is estimated at 2.5 billion tenge. Most contracts with the company were concluded via a single-source method.
“This is how it works: Sole Trader Dametken Shakenova wins the tender, then extends it. We can see what this leads to. The question now is: will the criminal case into the poisoning of children be seen through to its logical conclusion, or will the local elites sort it out amongst themselves?” the journalist writes.
As a reminder, on 6 September, in the Beshshoky residential area of the village of Mangistau, Munaily District, Mangystau Region, primary school pupils were mass poisoned after lunch in the canteen. The authorities have not yet disclosed the cause of the poisoning. However, parents claim that on that day, the children ate mashed potatoes with a cutlet in the school canteen.