Six Coimbatore children hospitalised after consuming poisonous cow dung powder by mistake

COIMBATORE: Six children who tried cooking their own rasam and sambar for dinner ended up in Coimbatore Medical College Hospital’s emergency ward on Sunday night, after they used the poisonous cow dung powder mistaking it for turmeric power. After a stomach wash, the children are stable now.
Six children, from three neighbouring houses in Thiruvalluvar Nagar in Somaiyanur, were playing on Sunday evening. While they were playing, the older children -- aged 13 and 11 -- decided cook dinner including sambar and rasam.
Around 10.30pm, after the children returned to their own houses, their parents found them starting to vomit continuously and complain of severe pain.
“The parents of the child in whose house the cooking was done realised that they used cow dung powder because the packet was open,” said a CMCH doctor.
Cow dung powder which contains yellow colouring Auramine 0 is extremely poisonous. It affects the organs in the body—mainly the liver. There is no antidote to this poison to counteract its effect.
The parents rushed the children to CMCH. “We first gave all the six children a bath, the under 12 children in the pediatric ward and the 13-year-olds in the medical ward,” said CMCH dean Dr B Ashokan.
“Since they consumed less quantity, around a spoonful in a dish, which all of them shared and the children came immediately, it was yet to be absorbed,” he said.
“We then carefully performed a stomach wash,” he said. The children are stable and might be discharged on Tuesday, said CMCH authorities.
“ Sale of cow dung powder should be banned or parents should be careful to keep it out of children’s reach,” said Dr B Ashokan.
Cow dung powder is kept at some houses in Tamil Nadu since it is spread on floors on auspicious days.