Tokyo - Japan's health ministry says the number of incidents of salmonella food poisoning exploded in the first three months of this year, sickening 1,770 people.
The ministry says that is almost five times the average number for the same period during the last three years.
A ministry official said the number is alarming since there are usually few incidents of the ailment during the winter months, which have now ended.
The figure included a massive outbreak among elementary school students that left 1,100 children in Tokyo and the nearby Kanagawa and Iwate prefectures suffering from fever and diarrhea.
Still the ministry did not provide an explanation for the sudden rise in incidents, but noted the import of foreign hatched chicks for poultry farming and egg production was a possible entry route into Japan for the bacteria.
A ministry official said the rise in salmonella incidents has been a trend over the last five years.
Last year, 11,000 people suffered from salmonella in 499 incidents of food poisoning _ three times larger than in 1992.
Salmonella has been the leading cause of food poisoning in Japan since 1992.
Including minor unreported cases the number of patients may now be as high as 100,000 annually.
Poisoning by salmonella, a genus of some 2,300 species of rod-shaped bacteria capable of triggering a variety of human and domestic animal diseases, is often spread through meat and eggs.
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