How Methanol Poisoning Outnumbered COVID-19 in Mortality in Fars, Iran, During The COVID-19 Outbreak? A Report from Fars Province, Southern Iran, March-April 2020. - Abstract
Objective: We intend to provide a subjective and scientific report on a tragic incident happened during COVID-19 outbreak in Iran which is a mass methanol poisoning in one of the provinces in Iran. Unexpectedly, this poisoning has outnumbered COVID-19 in mortality in Fars province which emphasizes the significance of this incident. Methanol poisoning cases count and its mortality was respectively so high. Accordingly, it can be distinguished as one of the largest methanol mass poisonings reported and this paper aims to present this poisoning quantitatively.
Method: Comprehensive data on reported methanol poisoning and COVID-19 cases were collected from different reliable sources such as world health organization, Iran health ministry, and Iranian national official press. The similar data for mortality was also collected. We tried our best to have reliable data and collect as much as data available especially in case of methanol poisoning. The collected data is presented in this paper.
Result: Highest poisoning mortality was observed in the first two months of the COVID-19 outbreak in Fars province, Iran. We also made this incident noted from a scientific point of view in order to investigate where this happening is rooted in. The main reason of such mass poisoning seems to be lack of knowledge about alcohol consumption in Iranian society.
Conclusion: After discussing the causes of such events, we proposed some solutions in order to prevent recursion of such incidents which are mainly focused on educating society in order to provide them with necessary knowledge about alcohol.