Knut Erik Hovda, a physician at Oslo University Hospital and the world’s leading expert in methanol poisoning, says that these cases likely represent only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. According to data collected by Médecins Sans Frontières, 2020 has already racked up nearly 7,000 cases and 1,607 deaths related to methanol poisoning-enough to make this year the deadliest on record. Hassanian-Moghaddam says that even young children began showing up in hospitals with methanol poisoning, having been given contaminated alcohol by their worried parents in the hopes that it would prevent the coronavirus. It would become the largest-and deadliest-such event doctors had recorded, garnering 5,876 hospitalizations and at least 800 deaths between February 23 and May 2. Strained supply chains dovetailed with the opportunity to make a quick buck, and Iran quickly found itself awash in poisonous booze. Desperate to protect their families, even those who normally disavowed intoxication started searching for ethanol, the typical ingredient in consumable alcohol. By mid-March, an outbreak of methanol poisoning gripped the country.Īs the coronavirus began to spread throughout Iran, so did a false rumor that drinking high-proof alcohol would kill the virus in the body began circulating. Even as cases of the novel coronavirus tore through Iran, a second epidemic emerged in its shadow. But Hossein Hassanian-Moghaddam, a clinical toxicologist at Loghman Hakim Hospital in Tehran, had seen this before. When these patients began trickling into emergency rooms at hospitals across Iran in late February, doctors struggled to make sense of what was happening. A world that was once crystal clear now looked like they were watching TV on a station with bad reception. Scarier still, some experienced kidney failure and vision problems. Many were comatose, and those who were conscious had bouts of nausea, vomiting, and hyperventilation.
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