PATNA, India (Reuters) - Five children have died and 96 other people have fallen seriously ill in eastern India after eating sweets and rice offered to a goddess at a village shrine, health officials said on Friday.
Children in Isua village, in Bihar, fell sick on Thursdayduring a festival to mark the full moon shortly after eatingthe temple offerings, known as prasad, made to Saraswati, theHindu goddess of learning.
"The children began vomiting and falling on the groundsenseless," Ramvilas Ranjan, a health official in the district,said by telephone.
The dead children were between 4 and 7 years old. Most ofthose taken sick are also children.
Ranjan thinks it was probably food poisoning. Villagerstold him the food had been kept in a store room for ten days.Tests are being done on the prasad.
In a similar incident in 2004, 11 children died aftereating prasad at a different village temple in Bihar.
(Writing by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Alex Richardson)
