Two days ago, 11 people, including nine children from the same family, fell ill in Jhapa after eating mushrooms picked from a nearby forest. They were rushed to the hospital, but there was no human casualty.

Experts have warned that as the monsoon approaches, poisoning and deaths from eating wild and poisonous mushrooms that grow in forests and grasslands may increase.

‘This is just the beginning, people have already started getting sick and hospitalized after eating wild mushrooms,’ said mushroom expert Dr. Hari Prasad Aryal, ‘In the coming days, poisoning and deaths due to wild mushrooms will increase further.’

It is estimated that more than three dozen people die and hundreds fall ill from consuming poisonous wild mushrooms in Nepal every year. However, the government or the concerned bodies do not seem to be taking this issue seriously.

What is even more worrying is that deaths, hospitalizations and poisoning incidents caused by wild mushrooms are not included in the definition of a disaster. That is why such incidents are not even recorded separately.

‘Since we do not keep records of wild mushroom poisoning and deaths, there is no data on how many people die or fall ill every year,’ said Shanti Mahat, spokesperson for the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority. ‘Poisonous mushrooms and deaths from them are also disaster incidents, but they are not included in the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act 2074.’

According to experts, most of the people who fall ill or die after eating poisonous mushrooms belong to extremely poor communities. This is probably why the state has not prioritized it, they say.

‘Such people live near forests and often have food shortages at home,’ said Aryal, who has studied wild mushroom poisoning in detail. ‘Such incidents are found everywhere from east to west.’ They feed wild mushrooms to themselves, their families and children without considering the consequences.'

According to the study, there are 1,291 species of wild mushrooms in Nepal, of which more than 100 are poisonous. Health officials say that food insecurity in poor and marginalized communities puts them at high risk of death.

According to experts, public awareness campaigns about the risks of consuming wild mushrooms can reduce poisoning incidents. They also suggest that the root cause of why people are forced to eat wild mushrooms at the risk of their lives should be investigated.

'Despite so many deaths and hospitalizations every year, our law does not consider wild mushroom poisoning as a disaster,' said Dr., an official at the Epidemiology and Disease Control Division. Amrit Pokharel said, ‘This can be considered a public health incident, but not a disaster.’

According to Pokharel, the success of treatment depends on how quickly the patient reaches the hospital, how poisonous the mushroom was, how much was eaten and the condition of the health facility.

‘The toxins in poisonous mushrooms are not destroyed even after cooking, because they are heat-resistant,’ Pokharel said, ‘Never eat wild mushrooms, it can be dangerous and fatal.’

According to experts, colorful mushrooms are more likely to be poisonous. Studies have shown that mushrooms have the ability to easily absorb toxic elements such as hydrocarbons, mercury and lead from contaminated soil. Experts say that mushrooms that were once considered edible can also become poisonous due to heavy metal pollution in the soil.

After consuming poisonous mushrooms, patients experience stomach pain, vomiting, diarrhea, and body tremors. Some may also experience confusion and kidney failure. In severe cases, liver failure can even lead to death.