Workers fall ill again

Several workers of a garment factory in Ashulia have fallen sick on Tuesday soon after joining the work in a third such case to hit the factory within a week.

Police said 200 workers of ‘The Rose Dresses Ltd’ fell sick within an hour of joining work on Tuesday morning.

Almost 6,000 workers came to work at 8am. The mishap struck around 9 am with many of the workers, who had water from the factory’s water tap, started vomiting and many collapsed on the floor, said Deputy Assistant Director Abdus Sattar of industrial police-1 of Ashulia Zone.

File Photo

They were rushed to Women and Child Health Centre in Doron area and also to other clinics in the vicinity. Some were taken to Enam Medical College Hospital.

Police assumed water could be the cause of the mass-illness.

The factory’s administrative officer Abdul Hannan however refuted such possibility saying the water tanks were cleaned and refilled after workers fell sick on Sunday.

“So the water should not be the cause of their illness”, he added.

Dr. Mosharraf Hossain officer for Health and Family Planning for Savar Thana said a team of doctors has been sent their after the incident.

After the workers fell sick on Sunday a sample of the tap water was collected and sent for testing. The report is expected on Wednesday.

BGMEA president Atiqul Islam is the owner of The Rose Dresses Ltd where another 250 workers fell sick earlier on Friday. It was suspected that the food served in the factory during dinner was the probable cause of the sickness.

However, the Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), government’s disease monitoring arm, has termed the sickness of workers as a ‘mass psychogenic illness, and was not caused by water or food contamination.’