The count reached 232 by the morning of June 19, the Dao Thanh Ward People's Committee said, up from 218 a day earlier and just 22 when the first patients were recorded on June 16.
Most are being treated at hospitals: 112 at Tien Giang General Hospital, 90 at Military Hospital 120, 23 at the My Tho Regional Medical Center and two at an on-demand ward. Five children were sent to Children's Hospital 1 in Ho Chi Minh City. All were reported in stable condition.
The patients had eaten meat-stuffed banh mi from Hong Ngoc 37 shop before developing abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, numbness in the hands, headaches and fatigue. Cases climbed as word of the outbreak spread and more people who had eaten there came forward.
Rapid tests on the shop's pork sausage, ham sausage and garlic meat sausage came back negative for borax, a banned preservative, but inspectors could not test the food that actually made people sick.
The sausages came from several batches with different dates, and the owner could not say which had gone into the sandwiches. The liver pate, made in-house, had already sold out, leaving no sample to analyze.
