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Police in Kunming, Yunnan province, announced the start of an investigation into the mercury poisoning of a 5-year-old boy on Tuesday.

The boy, Yu Jiangyue, is currently receiving treatment at the 307 Hospital of the People's Liberation Army in Beijing, where initial tests showed the level of mercury to be more than 200 times normal in his blood and more than 10,000 times normal in his urine.

Bai Jie, a police officer in Guandu district of Kunming, said Tuesday that officers arrived in Beijing and talked with family members and doctors who are treating the boy, but there has been no progress in the case.

The boy became severely ill at the beginning of this year and had a fever for more than a week, his father, surnamed Yu, said.

The father said the boy also had two large bumps in his buttocks, and silver material was found inside when the bumps were squeezed.

"We immediately took him to the hospital, and the X-ray radiograph showed that there was mercury all over his body, especially in the stomach," he said.

Yu said that the boy once told him that mercury had been given to him in food by a fellow student at his kindergarten. He said there was no chance the boy could have received it from anyone else.

The family first had the boy's health checked at the First Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, where tests showed a stunning amount of the liquid metal concentrated in parts of the boy's body.

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