242360

Acute Aluminium Phosphide Poisoning in East Delta, Egypt: a Growing Public Health Problem Over the Last Five Years

Article

Last updated: 04 Jan 2025

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Abstract

Background: Aluminium phosphide (AlP) is a pesticide used to preserve grains from rodents and household bugs. It's one of the most common causes of poisoning in developing countries as it's cheap, easy to use, and instantly fatal. Aim of the study: Assessment of the magnitude of acute AlP poisoning, characters of prevalent cases, and the general outcome of poisoning in the Eastern Delta of Egypt over the last five years. Patient and Method: We surveyed all patient records of AlP-poisoned cases admitted to local poisoning centers; Poison Control Center-Zagazig University Hospitals (PCC-ZUH) and Zagazig General Hospital, from Jan. 2017 to Jan. 2022, we calculated poisoning incidence over the studied years and extracted patient demographic data and poisoning sequelae to create detailed statistical patterns, then we evaluated all available case data to relate them to the patient outcome. Results: AlP poisoning is an increasing public health problem with the most frequent age group being 18 to 45 years (66%). Females represented the majority (62.5%), and 79.3% of the cases were from rural areas. Most of the cases were suicidal (70.6%), and the overall mortality rate of AIP over the last 5 years was 72.5%. Conclusions and Recommendations: The rising incidence of AlP poisoning is a threatening public health problem that mandates the government intervention to enact restrictive legislation on the purchase and use of wheat pills and raise public awareness through community education programs or campaigns.

DOI

10.21608/esctj.2022.140273.1009

Keywords

Aluminum phosphide, Wheat pill, Poisoning, mortality

Authors

First Name

Raghda

Last Name

Deraz

MiddleName

Hamed

Affiliation

Department of Forensic Medicine and Clinical Toxicology, Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University, Zagazig, Egypt

Email

raghdahamed@zu.edu.eg

City

Zagazig

Orcid

0000-0003-2685-7638

First Name

Dina

Last Name

Elrafey

MiddleName

Sameh

Affiliation

Department of Occupational Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University, Zagazig, Egypt

Email

dselrafey@zu.edu.eg

City

Zagazig

Orcid

-

First Name

Dalia

Last Name

Mesallam

MiddleName

Ibrahim Ahmed

Affiliation

1Department of Forensic Medicine and Clinical Toxicology, Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University, Zagazig, Egypt

Email

diamaae@yahoo.com

City

Zagazig

Orcid

-

Volume

10

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

34634

Issue Date

2022-06-01

Receive Date

2022-05-23

Publish Date

2022-06-01

Page Start

49

Page End

61

Print ISSN

2356-6515

Online ISSN

2356-6523

Link

https://esctj.journals.ekb.eg/article_242360.html

Detail API

https://esctj.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=242360

Order

4

Type

Original Article

Type Code

1,098

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Egyptian Society of Clinical Toxicology Journal

Publication Link

https://esctj.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Acute Aluminium Phosphide Poisoning in East Delta, Egypt: a Growing Public Health Problem Over the Last Five Years

Details

Type

Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023