No abstract

The Japan Poison Information Centre (JPIC) received 31,510 inquiries about poisoning in children under 6 years old being exposed to poison in the fiscal year 1995. The most frequently implicated products were tobacco (20%) and the peak age for ingestion of household products was 1 year and younger (83.3%). Especially, the inquiries related to children less than 1 year old were 35.7% of the cases. In contrast, the American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC) data showed that the most common poisonings were due to pharmaceutical products and the inquiries related to children less than 1 year old were only 12.1%. The objective of this report was to find out the poison exposure in children in Japan and to compare the data with that of AAPCC.

The Chemical Events Working Group of the Global Health Security Initiative has developed a flexible screening tool for chemicals that present a risk when accidentally or deliberately released into the atmosphere. The tool is generic, semi-quantitative, independent of site, situation and scenario, encompasses all chemical hazards (toxicity, flammability and reactivity), and can be easily and quickly implemented by non-subject matter experts using freely available, authoritative information. Public health practitioners and planners can use the screening tool to assist them in directing their activities in each of the five stages of the disaster management cycle.

Mass gatherings are events characterized by "the concentration of people at a specific location for a specific purpose over a set period of time that have the potential to strain the planning and response resources of the host country or community." Previous reports showed that, as a result of the concentration of people in the limited area, injury and illness occurred due to several factors. The response plan should aim to provide timely medical care to the patients and to reduce the burden on emergency hospitals, and to maintain a daily emergency medical services system for residents of the local area. Although a mass gathering event will place a significant burden on the local health-care system, it can provide the opportunity for long-term benefits of public health-care and improvement of daily medical service systems after the end of the event. The next Olympic and Paralympic Games will be held in Tokyo, during which mass gatherings will occur on a daily basis in the context of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic. The Academic Consortium on Emergency Medical Services and Disaster Medical Response Plan during the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2020 (AC2020) was launched 2016, consisting of 28 academic societies in Japan, it has released statements based on assessments of medical risk and publishing guidelines and manuals on its website. This paper outlines the issues and countermeasures for emergency and disaster medical care related to the holding of this big event, focusing on the activities of the academic consortium.

Key wordsThe Japan Poison Information Center (JPIC) was founded only 6 years ago as a result of co-operation between the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Japanese Association for Acute Medicine. the Japan Pediatric Society and other related medical organizations. The JPIC is the only poison information center admitted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare to provide toxicological information to medical personnel and the general public, and has two offices on duty in alternating 24 h shifts. Every year, JPIC receives about 30 000 inquiries. About 82% of these inquiries are from the general public and 84% of the