8 Bizarre Psychological Disorders Affecting Modern Man

By Peter Austin /

6. The Strawberries With Sugar Virus

So science fiction movies and international travel are off the cards but perhaps you€™d sooner stay at home with a bottle of wine and a TV guide anyway. In that case, be careful what you watch. In May 2006, over a dozen Portuguese schools reported an epidemic of what came to be known as the Morangos com Açúcar virus. A typical case consisted of a rash, dizziness and shortness of breath, with hundreds of students being affected. The unusual thing about this disease however, was that it was almost identical to a completely made-up illness that had plagued a school on an episode of a teen soap opera a few days prior. The name of the disease comes from the TV show€™s title, Morangos com Açúcar (Strawberries with Sugar), because all scientific evidence points to the fact that the entire event was nothing more than a case of mass hysteria brought about by the events of the soap. The children developed actual physiological symptoms simply because a fictional disease had afflicted some fictional students at a fictional school. Let€™s just hope that everyone on Eastenders can keep their ailments in check.