DDiscomfort, vomiting, itching, and an origin that remains mysterious. Poisoning has affected more than 60 students and one adult at the Fère-Champenoise primary school, in Marne, since last Thursday. If the prefecture had first advanced the carbon monoxide trail, the latter was no longer favored. Tuesday evening, only one child remained hospitalized under surveillance, without his condition being considered worrying.
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What happened ?
The discomfort began at midday on Thursday, when 21 children and one adult experienced vomiting and itching. Two children as well as the adult had to be hospitalized, according to the prefecture. The same symptoms were observed on Friday in around twenty children. All the children were able to leave the hospitals on Saturday.
On Monday, around twenty students out of the 170 in the school were once again taken care of by emergency services, and three of them were hospitalized, Mayor Gérard Gorisse told AFP. According to the councilor, they felt “nausea, headaches and stomach aches and tingling in the throat” on the 800 m journey that they covered on foot between the school and the canteen.
What are the avenues considered?
That of food poisoning was quickly ruled out, because not all the children ate in the canteen. Measurements have at this stage made it possible to detect “high doses” of carbon monoxide in students when they were leaving school, said the mayor. But the prefecture, which had first confirmed this lead on Monday, backtracked on Tuesday: “We had at one time considered carbon monoxide, it seems that it is not the cause”, declared the prefect Henri Prévost, quoted by the daily The union.
Analyzes carried out by the chemical risks unit “did not make it possible to detect the origin of the symptoms,” the prefecture said on Tuesday. “Longer-term monitoring” will be put in place, in conjunction with the Regional Health Agency (ARS), Public Health France and the Anti-Poison Center. A control protocol will be organized and deployed “inside the school buildings and the canteen as well as outside”, on the route taken by the schoolchildren.
When will the school be able to reopen?
Closed since Monday, the school group of Fère-Champenoise, a town of 2,000 inhabitants southwest of Châlons-en-Champagne, will remain closed for the week and “until further notice”, according to the prefecture. Who “aims to be able to reuse the premises next week”, according to The union.
