There will be no school this week at the Fère-Champenoise school group, a town of 2,000 inhabitants southwest of Châlons-en-Champagne (Marne). Several dozen students have been hospitalized in recent days after a series of carbon monoxide poisonings of unknown origin that have occurred since Thursday, said the mayor and the prefecture.
Only one child remained hospitalized “under surveillance” Tuesday evening, the prefecture said in a press release, specifying that no new cases had been noted on Tuesday. Closed since Monday, the school will remain closed for the week and “until further notice”, according to the same source.
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, the prefecture said on Monday, adding that “their carbon monoxide poisoning was confirmed”. 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, said Mayor Gérard Gorisse.
Origin unknown
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. Measurements have at this stage made it possible to detect “high doses” of carbon monoxide in students when they were leaving school, he added.
Analyzes carried out by the chemical risks unit “did not make it possible to detect the origin of the symptoms”, the prefecture nevertheless indicated 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, said the same source.
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.