KYIV, July 5 – At least 112 Ukrainians – including 33 children – have died this year of mushroom poisoning, with the number of victims growing daily over the past few weeks, the Health Ministry said Wednesday.
Some cases involved entire families, such as a seven-member family including four children who died in a village in the eastern Luhansk region, the ministry said.
Mushroom picking is a favorite summer and fall pastime for many people in Ukraine, as well as in other former Soviet republics, and for some impoverished Ukrainians it serves as a way of eking out food supplies.
But there are numerous poisoning cases each year. The death toll has already exceeded that of 1998, when 74 died, and 1999, when there were 42 fatalities. Ukrainian health authorities regularly warn about the dangers of picking mushrooms.
Some poisoning cases involve poisonous mushrooms mistaken for edible ones, while some of the victims appear to have gathered edible mushrooms in badly polluted areas.
