Parents in Mexico have been urged to supervise their children’s use of social media after 15 school pupils were hospitalised after taking tranquilisers in an internet ‘challenge’.
More than a dozen fifth and sixth graders (all likely to be between the ages of ten and 12) participated in the TikTok stunt – called the ‘tranq challenge’ – in the north-central city of Guanajuato, where they took a sedative before challenging each other to see who could stay awake the longest.
It came just days after health authorities issued a national alert about the craze. It was the fourth school in Mexico to suffer such incidents in the last year, with several students reporting illnesses.
