As of Sunday evening, altogether 56 children, aging from three to six, from a nursery in east China's Jiangxi Province suffered high fever, vomiting and diarrhea for some undetected reason, said the local government source.

All the 56 kids are from the province's Shangrao Nursery, who went to different hospitals in the city successively due to high fever since 3 AM Saturday.

The temperatures of some children even exceeded 40 degrees Celsius, or 104 Fahrenheit degrees, said the hospital sources.

Their parents said that the children ate cakes and noodles with bean sprout for lunch and supper on Friday.

The headmaster of the nursery, surnamed Zhao, said currently 18children out of the total 56 have been hospitalized for further treatment.

The local health department has already started to investigate the cause of the incident.

(Xinhua News Agency October 23, 2006)