Department Blog

Posted 3/1/2016 by Linda Kesselring

Documentation of Pediatric Poisonings in Egypt

Jon Mark Hirshon, MD, MPH, PhD, and Bryan D. Hayes, PharmD, along with Gordon S. Smith, MBChB, MPH, from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, and Wendy Klein-Schwartz, PharmD, MPH, from the Department of Pharmacy Practice and Science in the School of Pharmacy, and their Egyptian colleagues, are the authors of an article in the January issue of Clinical Toxicology. Its title is “Epidemiology of Acute Poisoning in Children Presenting to the Poisoning Treatment Center at Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt, 2009-2013.” The 38,470 children treated at the center during the study period accounted for 44% of total patients seen. Poisoning in preschool children was mainly unintentional and commonly caused by nonpharmaceutical agents, whereas most poisonings among adolescents were intentional. Pesticides, most commonly organophosphorus compounds and carbamates, were the agents that most often led to morbidity and mortality.