Four hostel kitchens ordered closed due to rat, cockroach faeces

Four school hostel kitchens in Perak were ordered closed because they posed the risk of causing food poisoning, said Perak Health Department director Datuk Dr Juita Ghazalie.

She said the directives to close were made under Section 18(1) of The Prevention And Control Of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 during a three-day integrated operation to inspect school hostel kitchens and school canteens from Monday.

She said the main reasons for the directive were the finding of rat and cockroach faeces and not achieving the stipulated premises evaluation level of 70 per cent.

According to Dr Juita, 195 premises were inspected comprising 89 school hostel kitchens and 106 school canteens.

"In addition, 34 Section 32B notices were issued to school hostel kitchen and school canteens operators for flouting the Food Cleanliness Regulations 2009," she said in a statement here, last night.