Recent advances to address European Union Health Security from cross border chemical health threats

Duarte‐Davidson, Raquel; Orford, Rob; Wyke, S.; Griffiths, Mark D.; Amlôt, Richard; Chilcott, Robert P.

doi:10.1016/j.envint.2014.01.003

Cited by 16 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…The preliminary response during the acute phase is usually coordinated and managed by first responders including police, fire and rescue personnel, medics and paramedics. Local, national or international responses may be needed depending on the scale of the incident [9]. Moreover, appropriate intervention programmes should also consider the decontamination and restoration of the environment(s) affected [18].…”

Section: Recovery and Restorationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The release of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) substances, and other hazardous material (HazMat) into the environment, either deliberately or involuntarily, are termed CBRN and explosive (CBRNe) or HazMat incidents, respectively. CBRN incidents, although rare, can impact on large groups in a population and affect multiple countries simultaneously, with serious implications for human health and the environment [9,10]. Examples of HazMat/CBRNe incidents are the attack with the highly toxic and environmentally persistent novichok agent in Salisbury (UK) in 2018 [11,12], the use of warfare chemical agents used against Syrian population [13] or the accident in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011 in Japan [14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Public Health England’s Recovery Tools: Potential Teaching Resources?

Pena-Fernandez¹,

Nisbet²,

Duarte‐Davidson³

et al. 2019

ICERI Proceedings

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Training to combat chemical and radiation accidents, incidents or attacks is critical for health professionals due to recent events involving these hazards or their use as unconventional weapons, such as the use of the nerve agent novichok in Salisbury, UK. Health professionals need to have appropriate knowledge and skills to effectively respond to future events involving any of these substances, which requires a rapid and coordinated response from different professionals to protect the environment and minimise the number of people exposed and reduce morbidity and mortality. However, despite chemical and radiation incidents becoming increasingly prevalent, literature reviews have shown that there is a lack of teaching of appropriate competences to face future crises in Europe, particularly amongst clinicians and other health professionals that would be part of the initial response. Thus, De Montfort University (DMU, UK) in collaboration with different academics from the University of Alcalá (Spain) and researchers from Public Health England (PHE) with comprehensive experience in environmental decontamination and restoration, have created a short training course for providing undergraduate/postgraduate students with basic skills to respond to chemical incidents, basic skills that are based on the major competences recently identified by the European Commission [1]. This novel training has been tested with students from different backgrounds in various European universities, recording high degrees of acquisition of the various basic competences that we developed to initially respond to chemical events [2]. To develop the practical part of this chemical training, we have incorporated the novel guidance and methodology developed by PHE to successfully tailor a protection and recovery response to any incident involving chemical substances, which is available in the "UK Recovery Handbook for Chemical Incidents" [3] and its web-based tools: "Chemical Recovery Navigation Tool" (CRNT, [4]) and "Chemical Recovery Record Form" (CRRF, [5]). These innovative resources aid the user to select effective protection, decontamination and restoration techniques or strategies from a pool of up-to-date options applicable to different environments according to the physicochemical properties of the chemical(s) involved and the area affected. The CRNT is accompanied by the CRRF, which facilitates collection and analysis of the necessary data to inform decisions, and an e-learning resource named "Chemical Recovery: Background" (CRB, [6]), which could facilitate the learning of environmental decontamination and restoration. We are currently developing a short training course to cover minor radiation incidents; this radiation training will follow the same methods used to develop the chemical training, but with the specific PHE recovery tools to tackle such events, specifically the "UK Recovery Handbooks for Radiation Incidents" [7] and its associated web-based tools "Radiation Recovery Navigation Tool" (Rad RNT, [8]), one for each environme...

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Section: Recovery and Restorationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public Health England’s Recovery Tools: Potential Teaching Resources?

Pena-Fernandez¹,

Nisbet²,

Duarte‐Davidson³

et al. 2019

ICERI Proceedings

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…She added, however, that only health effects considered as serious lead to recall products from consumers. Duarte-Davidson et al (2014) mentioned that relevant national authorities should be aware of chemical contamination incidents within the RAPEX.…”

Section: Marcin Pigłowskimentioning

confidence: 99%

Notifications of dangerous products from European Union countries in the RAPEX as an e-service

Pigłowski¹

2018

European Journal of Service Management

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The Rapid Alert System for dangerous non-food products (RAPEX) may be considered as a type of e-service, which combines e-administration, e-education and e-health. The RAPEX enables quick exchange of information between national authorities of the European Union (EU) countries on measures taken against products posing a risk to consumers health and safety. In the period 2005-2016 the notifications in the RAPEX related mainly to products originated from China (57%), however, notifications to products from EU countries accounted for 18% of all notifications. Therefore, the goal of the study was to examine, which product categories from EU countries were most commonly submitted in the RAPEX and which was the dependence between product category and origin country, year, risk level, product user, submitting country, risk type and adopted measures. There were cluster analysis and scatterplots using Statistica 12 and pivot tables using Excel applied. The largest number of notifications was submitted to products from Germany, but also from France, Italy, United Kingdom and Poland. There were mainly motor vehicles (and the number of notifications increased last years) and also clothing, textiles and fashion items, childcare articles and children's equipment, toys and cosmetics. The product user was mainly consumer. The risk level was primarily serious and the risk type was injury. The products were most often submitted by Germany and also Greece and the appropriate measures to products were taken mainly by economic operators.

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“…Chemical incidents may involve the accidental or deliberate release of a chemical contaminant, and the majority of incidents involve an acute release, accompanied by a rapidly rising exposure risk (WHO, ). Chemical incidents may be small or large in scale, and can give rise to multiple primary or secondary chemical casualties and fatalities (Baker, ; Duarte‐Davidson, Orford, Wyke, et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a chemical incident, emergency decontamination of affected casualties needs to be undertaken to reduce injury and possible loss of life. In a real incident, decontamination must protect against potential highly toxic and hazardous chemicals, such as toxic industrial chemicals (TICs) and chemical warfare agents (CWAs) (Balali‐Mood & Balali‐Mood, ; Brennan, Waeckerle, Sharp, & Lillibridge, ; Duarte‐Davidson et al, ). TICs are defined as any substances (gas, liquid or solid) that are produced, stored, transported and widely used by industry and can cause harm to human health or the environment when not properly contained.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chemical warfare agent simulants for human volunteer trials of emergency decontamination: A systematic review

James

Wyke

Marczylo

et al. 2017

J of Applied Toxicology

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Incidents involving the release of chemical agents can pose significant risks to public health. In such an event, emergency decontamination of affected casualties may need to be undertaken to reduce injury and possible loss of life. To ensure these methods are effective, human volunteer trials (HVTs) of decontamination protocols, using simulant contaminants, have been conducted. Simulants must be used to mimic the physicochemical properties of more harmful chemicals, while remaining non‐toxic at the dose applied. This review focuses on studies that employed chemical warfare agent simulants in decontamination contexts, to identify those simulants most suitable for use in HVTs of emergency decontamination. Twenty‐two simulants were identified, of which 17 were determined unsuitable for use in HVTs. The remaining simulants (n = 5) were further scrutinized for potential suitability according to toxicity, physicochemical properties and similarities to their equivalent toxic counterparts. Three suitable simulants, for use in HVTs were identified; methyl salicylate (simulant for sulphur mustard), diethyl malonate (simulant for soman) and malathion (simulant for VX or toxic industrial chemicals). All have been safely used in previous HVTs, and have a range of physicochemical properties that would allow useful inference to more toxic chemicals when employed in future studies of emergency decontamination systems.

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Recent advances to address European Union Health Security from cross border chemical health threats

Cited by 16 publications

References 26 publications

Public Health England’s Recovery Tools: Potential Teaching Resources?

Public Health England’s Recovery Tools: Potential Teaching Resources?

Notifications of dangerous products from European Union countries in the RAPEX as an e-service

Chemical warfare agent simulants for human volunteer trials of emergency decontamination: A systematic review

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