Its food was not cause of refugee camp sickness: WFP says

Mugadishu, Friday, July 26, 2007 Simba Radio

U.N. World Food Program said Friday that its food was not to blame for a rash of illnesses that sent dozens of Somali refugees to the hospital.

Thirty-seven people in the Dadaab refugee camps in northern Kenya reported diarrhea, fever, vomiting and abdominal pain after eating food aid that included yellow corn donated by the United States . It's common to mix the food with camel milk, which is not provided by aid agencies.

"Laboratory tests show (the food aid) was not the cause of an outbreak of vomiting and diarrhea," said Isaiah Ofuyo, a spokesman for WFP.

The Dadaab camps are home to 237,000 people, most of them having fled 16 years of conflict in neighboring Somalia .