Viral social media challenges cause multiple poisonings in five schools in Venezuela

In recent days, Venezuelan authorities have recorded the poisoning of several dozen students in five schools in different states of the country, linked to protests on social networks, the Minister of the Interior reported this Wednesday. Diosdado Hair.

In his weekly program “With the given hammer”, broadcast on VTV, the also first vice-president of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) specified that two of the five educational centers in which the poisonings were detected are located in the state of Miranda (north), one in Barinas (west) and two in Portuguesa (west).

On November 5, it was detected the first mass poisoningthat affected 94 people in a school in Barinaswhere, according to the state channel VTVa 14-year-old student – now detained – discovered a bottle containing “a pink liquid substance” which “is being analyzed”.

Three days later, authorities recorded 85 poisonings at a school in Portuguesa, caused by a “suspected unidentified chemical substance.”

“It’s a problem that must be faced, the question of social networks, legislation, regulation (…). They post messages and encourage people to participate from there.“, in this case it is about young people,” Cabello said last Wednesday, without updating the total number of people poisoned.

He added that “there will come a time” when it will be necessary to “regulate the use of social networks”, because – he said – “when we do not have control over the elements they use for these types of challenges”, you can “end up building something very harmful, with disastrous consequences”.

The casesthat They are suspected to be linked to the viral “chrome plating” challenge. consisting of the inhalation of toxic substances from aerosols, deodorants, paints and insecticides, are the subject of an investigation by the Corps of Scientific, Criminal and Criminal Investigations.