On September 23, 2022, 12-year-old Esmeralda walked out of the girls' bathroom at her middle school in Tapachula, Mexico, and fainted.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador began including regular updates on the government's investigation into the fainting episodes in his daily press conferences.
Dr. Carlos Alberto Pantoja Meléndez, one of Mexico's few field epidemiologists, had taken an interest in the fainting episodes.
News of the initial fainting episodes had been shared there, the epidemiologist, who asked to remain anonymous, told Pantoja-Melendez.
Both believe that the fainting episodes in Mexico were examples of something new and alarming: mass hysteria spreading online.
Persons:
Esmeralda, Diala, Gladys, Esmeralda's, convulsing, Esmeralda Eva Alicia Lépiz, —, Esmerelda, Mami, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, Gladys didn't, Bochil, Luis Villagrán, bristled, Susanna, Tapachula, Diala's, José Eduardo Morales Montes, they'd, Eva Alicia Lépiz, Hidalgo —, I've, Carlos Alberto Pantoja Meléndez, Pantoja Meléndez, Meléndez, Robert Bartholomew, Bartholomew, Lopez Obrador, busily, Simon Wessley, schoolgirls, twitching, we'll, Pantoja, Melendez, Bartholomew said, we're, We've, who's
Organizations:
Federal, Central America, Journalists, Mexico City —, Mexico City, Universidad Autónoma Nacional, University of Auckland, Roswell, Kings College, New York, Health Department, Pantoja
Locations:
Tapachula, Mexico, Bochil, Mexican, Chiapas, Mexico City, El Pais, Chiapas —, Central, Esmeralda, Mexico City — Tlaxcala, Hidalgo, México, University of Auckland , New Zealand, Veracruz, London, Southern Mexico, Kanshasa, Tanzania, Blackburn , England, Sweden, Pyuthan, Nepal, Leroy , New York, Tapachula .