Eight ill in Japan after poisoned dumplings

At least eight people in Japan have fallen ill after they ate poison-laced frozen dumplings, police and health officials said today.

A family of three in western Hyogo state and another family of five in Chiba, near Tokyo, suffered severe abdominal pains, vomiting and diarrhoea earlier this month after eating the dumplings, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

The dumplings were imported from China and sold by a Japanese company, it added.

Nobody has died, but a five-year-old girl in Chiba is in a coma and her 47-year-old mother, two elder brothers and a sister are all seriously ill, a Chiba police spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity due to internal policy.