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Global uniform documentation on poisonings is to improve data situation and reduce health risks

19/1995, 20.10.1995

It is not known precisely how many people suffer or die every year through poisons but they can be numbered in hundreds of thousands. Besides chemical substances - be they medicinal products, household products, plant protection products or other chemicals - poisonous plants, mushrooms or animals may cause poisoning. For that reason poison control centres have been set up to provide information and advice in many countries. A global uniform documentation on cases of poisonings should in future help to provide better data on the course of poisoning and thus reduce the health risks. That is the goal that the 90 clinical toxicologists from 40 countries set themselves when they came together for one week for an exchange of experience within the framework of the "INTOX" project of the World Health Organisation at the Federal Institute for Health Protection of Consumers and Veterinary Medicine, BgVV, in Berlin. The meeting which was held at the international centre "Jagdschloß Glienicke" from 16 to 20 October 1995 was supported by the Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Reactor Safety.

INTOX is a project which was launched by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 1988 within the framework of the International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS). Its objective is to improve the identification and assessment of health risks from chemicals. One focus of work is support for poison control centres in the Third World. They often have little opportunity themselves to procure information which they can then use in counselling. They do, however, face major problems for instance from pesticide contamination or the effects of chemical weapons and insufficient industrial safety measures.

Within the framework of the INTOX project a computer programme has been designed and presented at the international toxicologist conference. It enables the cases of poisoning to be documented in a uniform manner. More than 100 experts from many countries have participated in the development of the programme and created international consensus on the basis of which cases of poisoning in future are to be recorded using classification systems which are the same around the world and jointly evaluated.

Besides documentation software, the computer programme includes product information, monographs about chemicals, medicinal products, poisonous plants and "poisonous" animals. All this information is provided on a compact disk which is obtainable from the WHO International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS) in Geneva. INTOX is an important step towards harmonising the documentation of poisoning cases. After its seven year development the programme is now to be tested in practice.

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