IPOH, Aug 3 — The food caterer at Maktab Rendah Sains Mara in Taiping will be charged in court soon following two food poisoning cases in the boarding school in the last one month, the state Health Department said today.

State Health Committee chairman A. Sivanesan said it was unacceptable to have two incidents on July 12 and Aug 1 by the same contractor.

"To make matters worse, Mara said it could not end the contract as it had just been extended by six months from July 31," he said.

Speaking to the media at his office at the State Secretariat office here, Sivanesan said the state government was giving Mara seven days to terminate the contract failing which the state would not be responsible for any poisoning incidents in the future.

"We are talking about human lives here. We cannot tolerate Mara placing more importance on their contracts than the safety of the children," he said.

Earlier, Sivanesan said a total of 103 students were sent to Taiping Hospital on Aug 1 after developing stomach ache, diarrhoea and vomit from eating ‘mi rojak’ at about 11pm the day before.

"In the meantime, a supplier from Semanggol is providing food for the students after the canteen was ordered to be closed for two weeks for cleaning exercise following the latest poisoning incident," he said.

On the first incident, which happened on July 12, Sivanesan said clinical tests found the food was contaminated with Coagulase positive staphylococcus and Bacillus cereus.

A total of 40 students were affected in the first incident.