On Wednesday, March 1st, 2023, Iran’s semi-official Mehr News stated that Parliament member Shahriar Heydari cited an unnamed reliable source for the poisoning of nearly 900 students from across the country.

The first poisoning occurred on November 20th, 2022, when 18 schoolgirls in high school were suddenly hospitalized. Not too long after on February 14th, 2023, over 100 students from 13 different schools in the country were hospitalized after the news agency Tasnim described the incident as a “serial poisoning.”

Recently, on Tuesday, February 28th, 2023, 35 more students were hospitalized and were in “good” condition and later released. There is only one report of a poisoning at a boys’ school on February 14th in Qom.

Iranian Health Minister Bahram Einollahi, visited students in Qom on the 15th of last month stating the current symptoms included: muscle weakness, nausea, tiredness, and that the “poisoning” was mild somehow.

Einollahi took samples from patients back to the Qom hospital for an examination and reported no microbes or viruses identified in the samples.

A mother of two girls in Qom told CNN that both of her daughters had been poisoned at different schools, and one of them had experienced significant issues after being poisoned. She spoke about the condition of the illness and fears for her family’s safety. 

Local activists and national political figures have called for the government to do more in investigating the poisonings.