A Beijing restaurant has been fined 410,000 yuan (50,000 U.S. dollars) for selling snails contaminated with a parasite that gave 160 diners food poisoning, announced the city's health bureau on Friday.

Between May and August this year, 160 diners at the Shuguo Yanyi Restaurant were diagnosed with angiostrongyliasis, a parasitic disease that harms the brain and spinal cord and can lead to meningitis, after eating raw or half-cooked Amazonian snails in two chain outlets.

The restaurant admitted that the snails had not been processed correctly.

The snails were supplied by a businessman from south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

All the patients had recovered by late September, according to the bureau.

The municipal government has banned the sale of raw or half-cooked Amazonian snails to diners in restaurants.

Amazonian snails originated in South America and first came to China in the 1980s as a delicacy.

Source: Xinhua