In short, health experts warn, the sprawling metropolis of 10 million people is being slowly poisoned by the cloud of exhaust emissions -- including deadly carbon monoxide -- churned out by millions of decrepit, gas guzzling cars.

"Tehran has been trapped in a spiral of sickness. Its people are dying a slow death as a consequence of negligence in sustainable city development," Dr Hassan Laghai, an environmental expert and advisor to Tehran's mayor, told AFP.

The consequences of the suffocating smog are alarming: intelligence and brain functions, particularly among children, are being impaired, while cancer is seen as an inevitable hazard of living in one of the world's most polluted cities.

"Based on psychological studies, the pollution raises tension and violence too," said Laghai, referring to phenomena such as increased "road rage" and the general bad mood sweeping the city.

"The quality of life in Tehran is less than zero," was Laghai's assessment of one of the Middle East's largest cities.

Tehran is badly polluted at the best of times, with the city's air deemed "unhealthy" for at least 100 days of the year. But over the past week, meteorological conditions have conspired to see that the dense cloud of yellow-brown haze has stayed put.

"We've been getting increasing numbers of patients with chronic respiratory, lung and asthmatic problems," said Dr Hassan Heydar-Nejad, a Tehran lung specialist.

"This high concentration of carbon monoxide causes bad moods, dizziness, excessive fatigue, eye irritation, respiratory problems and heart attacks. It doesn't matter how old you are or if you had a history of respiratory disease -- it is just as hazardous as gas poisoning."

Iran's government has acknowledged a rise in "poisoning problems", but so far there does not appear to have any formal study on the precise scale of the public health problem and its casualties.

Large numbers of victims, however, can be found in any Tehran hospital.

One is Mohaddeseh Raouf, a nine-year-old girl from the working class south of the city who has spent the past four days in hospital due to a common complaint of allergic asthma.

"She is dependent on inhalers. We have to buy more expensive foreign sprays because the quality is better," explained her mother, Maryam Raouf -- adding that the treatment was costing the family close to 20 percent of its monthly income.

With the city having serious trouble breathing, local authorities have been spurned into action. Last week residents were given two days holiday, and schools have also been shut.

Car use is also being restricted by police -- complete with face masks -- deployed around the perimeter of the city centre.

Many of the two million plus vehicles in the city are more than 20 years old and consume cheap subsidised petrol -- which costs a paltry nine US cents a litre, or 34 cents a gallon -- at an alarming rate.

But according to Laghai, what Tehran needs is more "fundamental solutions".

"We need a step by step improvement of social, cultural, economic and urban management issues in the city -- manufacturing standards, replacement of rundown cars, reduction of car production, development of public transportation, expansion of green areas, decentralisation, implementation laws," he stressed.

But Dr Mohammad-Hossein Pirasteh, head of Tehran's environmental protection organisation, insisted air quality in Tehran had returned to "healthy" -- although residents suspect the criteria for such a label may not be so strict.

In any case, Pirasteh said, "rain is predicted so we hope to see some clean air".

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