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Iranwire – Seven people died in the northern province of Tehran after drinking bootleg alcohol, officials say, amid a recent surge in cases of fatal alcohol poisoning in the country.
Omid Ahmadi, district governor of Robat Karim, said on June 25 that the consumption of “counterfeit alcohol” had sickened at least 22 individuals in Robat Karim and Parand during the previous four days.
Some of the fatalities could have been prevented if the victims had been taken to hospital on time, Ahmadi said.
Dozens of people suffering from alcohol poisoning symptoms were taken to hospital in multiple cities in Alborz, West Azerbaijan, Hormozgan and Tehran provinces in recent days.
According to the head of the emergency center in Alborz, as many as 191 individuals were poisoned by the evening of June 25, with 17 fatalities. Four individuals are receiving treatment in an intensive care unit.
Earlier, the Etemaad newspaper reported that at least four young people in Alborz province suffered blindness due to alcohol poisoning.
In West Azerbaijan province, health authorities confirmed that seven individuals suffered from alcohol poisoning symptoms, resulting in one fatality in the city of Sardasht.
And officials from the University of Medical Sciences in Hormozgan province reported 33 poisoning cases caused by the consumption of “poisonous alcoholic beverages” containing methanol.
Experts say there are likely to be more fatal alcohol poisoning cases during the summer, when people usually travel and hold celebrations.
Abbas Masjedi Arani, the head of Iran’s Forensic Medicine Organization, said last week that 644 people died from “alcohol poisoning” during the past Iranian year, which ended in March. That represented a 30 percent increase compared to the previous year, he said.
Alcohol has been banned in Iran Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but Iranians still drink foreign and homemade alcoholic beverages that are sold on the black market.
Iranians are increasingly turning to cheap homemade alcohol because many can no longer afford to buy foreign-made beverages amid a deepening economic crisis which has seen growing inflation, unemployment and poverty.
