Due to a viral challenge on social networks, dozens of minors have been intoxicated by mixing soft drinks with sexual enhancers for adults. The most recent case was presented at the Villemar del Carmen educational institution, in the town of Fontibón, west of Bogotá.
“They were all sharing and some children shared some Viagra pills in a soft drink and there were intoxicated. I am aware that there are approximately 5 children who were in the hospital, but we also want to make this warning not only to this school but to the schools of the District”, said Jorge Ochoa, a resident of the institution.
After being stabilized, the minors were handed over to their families and are recovering at home. The Ministry of Education continues to monitor the case.
“My daughter told me that today several children were intoxicated with viagra due to a TikTok challenge at school. This gave them diarrhea and vomiting. My daughter says that she saw the children badly, that they were trembling and that they were taken away in an ambulance”, affirmed a mother of a family.
Even the girl told her mother that she had also been offered this drink.
The district authorities are on alert for these cases that are repeated in several schools in the city and put the health of minors at risk. While a similar situation arose in Cartagena del Chairá, Caquetá, where 15 minors were also intoxicated for practicing this challenge.
What do the health authorities say regarding the dangerous challenge?
For some children and young people it is just a challenge or a trend that has taken over social networks. What they really ignore is that consuming and mixing this type of medication endangers their health.
“Among the potential risks that can be identified when taking this medication without medical supervision is the slight and transitory decrease in blood pressure, and spontaneous effects on vision,” reported Invima.
According to the entity, to date 5 cases have been identified in children under 12 and 14 years of age in Antioquia, one case in an 11-year-old boy in Atlántico, four cases in Acacias, Meta; 11 cases in Madrid, Cundinamarca, in children under 13 and 12 years of age; in Cúcuta 13 cases and 7 young people affected in Fusagasugá.
Although this is a medicine that should only be purchased through a medical formula, as indicated by Invima, its free sale is allowing it to reach the hands of minors.
“They use enhancers to look at the effects they have on the body. This is very serious, we have a massive intoxication with the use of this medicine. Here there have to be criminal hands, because effectively the children do not have a way to buy this type of medicine in drugstores, so there are criminal hands where an adult, indeed, had to do some exercise to give these children medicine so that they might that challenge”, said Gerson Bermont, director of Promotion and Prevention of the Ministry of Health.
In addition, the Ministry of Health warns that the majority of affected children consume this type of mixture within educational institutions, and therefore controls in schools should also be increased.
