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Annals of Disaster Medicine

ISSN:1684-193X

Updated July 18, 2003

Contents:
Volume 2, Number 1; July, 2003
Availability of Nerve Gas Antidotes at Emergency Pharmacy in Taiwan
Chor-Min Lin, MD; Hon-Ping Ma, MD; Tzong-Luen Wang, MD, PhD
Abstract --Incident chemical attack was one of the devastating man-made disasters. To investigate the hospital stockpiling for nerve agent antidote, we studied the safety deposit of atropine as an indicator in 10 emergency response hospitals in Taipei. Two of them were tertiary medical center, and the remaining eight secondary referral hospitals. The average amount of safe deposit was calculated from January 2002 to December 2003 for each hospital. The amount of stockpile in the two medical centers was higher than that of the other 8 response hospitals (1650+110 mg v. 230+45 mg, P<0.01). The average amount of atropine in all hospitals was 380+50 mg. In addition, the average time needed to supply additional antidotes was 3+1 hours. The capacity of the treatment during attack was estimated to be 2.6+0.2 persons per hour for each hospital. Although the stockpile of these hospitals fulfilled the requirements from Department of Health, they could not afford an adequate capacity for a sarin event. In conclusion, our study revealed that the hospital stockpiling of atropine is insufficient for incidental chemical attack in Taiwan, the increase of hospital stockpile or the implementation of in situ rapid synthesis method might be a resolution.
Key words--- Incidental Chemical Attack; Nerve Agents; Atropine; Hospital Stockpile

 

 

 

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