The European Chemical Emergency Network: responding to cross border chemical incidents

Global event-based surveillance of chemical incidents

“…As of the end of June 2020, the database contains 1592 recorded chemical incidents in 121 countries, involving 252 unique chemical agents. The original purpose of performing EBS was to identify incidents that had the potential to be cross-border in nature, some of these incidents were then forwarded to RASCHEM and to colleagues from around Europe within the ECHEMNET network [ 15 ]. These incidents included an outbreak of methanol poisoning in Turkey in October 2015 due to adulterated spirits [ 16 ], this was posted as there was a potential for this spirit to be sold in the EU; in July 2016, there was an incorrect formulation of a vitamin D supplement marketed to babies and young children in Denmark, the higher than stated levels of vitamin D led to 25 babies becoming sick [ 17 ] and was posted to RASCHEM as the product was available online; in August 2017, around 150 beachgoers were exposed to a chemical mist that drifted from the English channel onto Birling Gap beach on the south coast of England [ 18 ], the origin of the mist was unclear and the event posted to RASCHEM for information for European colleague and the potential for the mist to affect French coastlines.…”

“…Reports on a specific region or a specific time period are also created, which identify trends in the type of agents involved in incidents, the health effects common to a region or caused by a particular agent. Under previous EU projects (e.g., ECHEMNET, EMETNET [ 15 , 20 ]) a weekly digest of the recent events detected was sent out to an agreed mailing list, including project partners and key experts. These include experts from a variety of European countries, colleagues from Canada, Australia and from WHO and the European Commission.…”

“…Previously there was a network in place for utilising the incidents detected through EBS, as under the ECHEMNET project, incidents were forwarded to network colleagues in EU countries, Poison Centres and posted to RASCHEM if there was potential for the incident to become cross-border [ 15 ]. As the project came to a close and the network is no longer active, it would be beneficial to explore alternative sustainable mechanisms to continue this work.…”