Food safety ministry to inspect 4,300 daycare kitchens for norovirus

The food and drug safety ministry said it will inspect about 4,300 daycare center kitchens nationwide from Oct. 12 to 30, a joint operation with local governments aimed at preventing norovirus outbreaks.

The ministry attributed the timing to norovirus, a gastrointestinal virus that survives even at minus 20 degrees Celsius and is therefore most common in winter. Contaminated food or water can cause food poisoning.

The inspection will concentrate on whether expired products are being used or stored, whether kitchens keep preserved food samples, and general hygiene in food handling and cooking areas. Inspectors will also collect cooked food and cooking utensils for laboratory testing for food poisoning bacteria. Under the rules for group catering facilities, a single portion of every meal cooked and served must be kept at minus 18 degrees Celsius or below for at least 144 hours.

All of the sites fall under the ministry's annual inspection plan for daycare catering operations, drawn up this year to cover 10,500 facilities. Inspectors completed 6,173 of them in the first half, and the October round will close out the program.

Alongside the inspections, the ministry will run training and publicity during the same period on safe practices for cooking in large quantities, hygiene measures to prevent norovirus food poisoning, and how to respond when a patient falls ill. It also released two reference guides: a set of food poisoning prevention rules and instructions for disinfecting and disposing of vomit.