An Iranian deputy minister on Sunday said "some people" were poisoning schoolgirls in the holy city of Qom with the aim of shutting down education for girls, state media reported.
Since late November, hundreds of cases of respiratory poisoning have been reported among schoolgirls mainly in Qom, south of Tehran, with some needing hospital treatment.
On Sunday the deputy health minister, Younes Panahi, implicitly confirmed the poisonings had been deliberate.
On February 14, parents of students who had been ill had gathered outside the city`s governorate to "demand an explanation" from the authorities, IRNA, state news agency, reported.
