The boy, now blind after his parents gave him toxic methanol in the mistaken belief it protects against the virus, is just one of the hundreds of victims of an epidemic inside the pandemic now gripping Iran.
Iranian media reports nearly 300 people have been killed and more than 1,000 sickened so far by ingesting methanol across the Islamic Republic, where drinking alcohol is banned and where those who do rely on bootleggers.
It comes as Tehran announced 144 new deaths from coronavirus yesterday, bringing its death toll to 2,378, and another 2,926 new confirmed cases, with a total of more than 32,300 infected.
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There have been a spate of fake remedies spreading across social media in Iran, where people remain deeply suspicious of the government after it downplayed the crisis for days before it overwhelmed the country.
“The virus is spreading and people are just dying off, and I think they are even less aware of the fact that there are other dangers around,” said Dr Knut Erik Hovda, a clinical toxicologist in Oslo who studies methanol poisoning and fears Iran’s outbreak could be even worse than reported.
“When they keep drinking this, there’s going to be more people poisoned.”
For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks.
For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, or death.
The pandemic has swept across the world, overwhelming hospitals, crippling economies and forcing governments to restrict the movements of billions of people. Particularly hard hit has been Iran, home to 80 million people.
As of now, there is no known cure for (COVID-19), the illness caused by the virus. Scientists and doctors continue to study the virus and search for effective medicines and a vaccine.
But in messages forwarded and forwarded again, Iranian social media accounts in Farsi falsely suggested a British school teacher and others cured themselves of the coronavirus with whiskey and honey, based on a tabloid story from early February.
Mixed with messages about the use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers, some wrongly believed drinking high-proof alcohol would kill the virus in their bodies.
Even before the outbreak, methanol poisoning had taken a toll in Iran. One academic study found methanol poisoning sickened 768 people in Iran between September and October 2018 alone, killing 76.
Other Muslim nations that ban their citizens from drinking also see such methanol poisoning, although Iran appears to be the only one in the pandemic so far to turn toward it as a fake cure.
In Buddhist Cambodia, police said they seized 4,200 liters (1,100 gallons) of methanol from a man who unwittingly planned to make toxic hand sanitizer because of the virus outbreak.
Muslim drinkers in Iran can be punished with cash fines and 80 lashes. However, minority Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians can drink alcoholic beverages in private.
While police occasionally announce alcohol busts, the trade-in nontoxic alcohol also continues. Locally made Iranian arak from fermented raisins, known as Aragh sagi, sells for $10 for a 1.5-litre bottle. Imported vodka sells for $40 a bottle.
“Every year during Nowruz, or the Persian New Year holidays that begin 21 March, my customers double,” said Rafik, an Iranian-Armenian who makes vodka in the basement of his Tehran home.
He spoke on the condition that only his first name be used for fear of arrest. ‘This year, because of coronavirus, it jumped up by four or fivefold.’
Farhad, a self-described heavy drinker who lives in central Tehran, said alcohol remains easy to find for those looking for it.
“Even you can find it offered when you are walking down the street,” he said.
Since 1979, Iran’s 40 alcohol factories have seen their production changed to pharmaceutical needs and sanitizers.
Others had been left idle, like the abandoned Shams alcohol factory east of Tehran.
But now, in a time when even some mosques in Iran hand out high-proof alcohol as a sanitizer, officials plan to start work again at Shams to produce 22,000 litres of 99 per cent alcohol a day.
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