Uganda: WFP suspends food relief, 3 dead, over 200 hospitalized

World Food Programme has suspended the distribution of a fortified food cereal in Uganda. Three people have died and over 240 others were hospitalized in northeastern Uganda after they ate contaminated relief food, a Uganda Red Cross official said on Monday.

Beatrice Nakitende, Red Cross manager for the south Karamoja region, told Xinhua that two deaths were registered in Amudat district while the other was in Napak. She said by Sunday there were 140 victims in Napak and 100 others in Amudat.

Nakitende said that currently the situations in both districts of Amudat and Napak are under control, and the majority of the hospitalized were already discharged. The United Nation World Food Program on Saturday announced that it had stopped the distribution of blended food in Uganda after reports of recipients falling sick.

The food aid agency in a weekend statement said scores of recipients of Super Cereal, a fortified blended food, were taken sick and admitted to health centres in Karamoja. Nakitende said Red Cross is working with WFP to sensitize the community to withdraw all the foodstuff that had been distributed earlier, as reported by Xinhua.

Super cereal is usually given to pregnant or nursing women at risk of malnutrition, but has been included in general rations across the country for malnourished Ugandans and refugees, World Food Program (WFP) spokesman Peter Smerdon told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.

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