Medical workers in Shaanxi Province Friday called on school managers and parents to teach children more on preventing from food poisoning after 10 middle school students got poisoned by a ginseng-like wild plant they had taken.

The students, from Chong Huang Middle School in Gaoling County, tasted an unnamed plant which one of them brought to the classroom Thursday noon and said it was ginseng. They just took a little of the plant because it was bitter and astringent, said one student.

One of them began to sick up at class at 1 pm and the nine others reported headache or stomach ache afterward. They were first sent to a clinic near the school and later transferred to the county hospital by 3:30 pm.

Three of them in comparatively serious condition had been sent to the central hospital in Xi'an, the provincial capital, for treatment, said doctors at the county hospital.

(Xinhua News Agency December 19, 2003)