Kindergarten children stabbed with syringe

By Guo Anfei in Kunming and Lan Tian in Beijing (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-10-27 08:21

Toddlers at a kindergarten whose teacher allegedly stabbed them with a syringe were not infected with HIV, blood tests showed yesterday.

The 24-year-old teacher, Sun Qiqi, has been under detention since the weekend.

She allegedly stabbed more than 20 toddlers with a needle at Xihu Kindergarten of Daxihu village in Jianshui county, southwest China's Yunnan province.

The kindergarten was unlicensed.

Zhou Limei, mother of one of the toddlers, told China Daily yesterday that her 4-year-old daughter, Tang Mengqi, had been stabbed by Sun several times last week.

"My daughter told me on Oct 20 that Sun stabbed the back of her left hand with a needle during the children's afternoon nap, which I didn't think about much at that time. But I was shocked when my daughter said she was stabbed by Sun again last Friday and I found five pinpricks on her bottom," said Zhou, adding the syringe contained water children had used for washing hands.

Since then her daughter has been crying frequently and can't sleep at night, she said.

"Although the blood test shows the children are HIV negative, I hope the government gives us proper compensation," she said.

The children were also given ultrasound CT scans yesterday, and the results would come out in two days.

The local government has paid all the medical expenses, Yao Yusong, an official with Jianshui county's disease control and prevention center, told China Daily yesterday.

Neither the kindergarten's owner Bai Yali nor the police station's head Li Jian could be reached yesterday.

Sun graduated from a local nuring school and started to teach at the kindergarten several months ago.

Sun and another teacher were in charge of a class with 37 toddlers aged 3 to 4 years old. Sun often scolded children, once kicking a child's belly and splashing sewage on a child's head, a child's mother Zhou said.

Several parents also found their children had been stabbed by Sun. They reported the case to police on Saturday.