Authorities agree to keep up fight for life of brain-dead Chinese boy ‘poisoned by kindergarten teacher’
- Five-year-old still in coma seven months after he and his classmates were poisoned by teacher
- Child’s mother says officials pressured her to give up treatment so autopsy could be used as evidence in court
Wang Junxi, five, remained in a coma and showed no signs of improvement, the Jiefang district government in Jiaozuo, Henan province, said in an online statement on Saturday night, after his parents complained online that officials had asked them to abandon treatment of the boy.
Junxi, who is being kept alive by a life-support machine, was among 23 children at a kindergarten who ate porridge contaminated with sodium nitrite on March 27.
The compound, used as a food additive and a precursor for pesticides, was allegedly added to the food by a teacher named Wang Yun, in an attempt to frame another teacher.
All the children recovered from the poisoning except Junxi.
“The child is not improving despite several group consultations of top doctors from Beijing and Shanghai … but we are still trying to cure him as best we can,” the district government said.