Abstract
Introduction. —The Covid-19 pandemic and the containment situation, has generated enormous risks for children. Indeed, with the closure of schools, children, forced to stay at home, found themselves in permanent contact with dangerous products (drugs, disinfectants, plants) exposing them to accidental poisoning. Objective. —To describe the epidemiological, clinical and evolutionary aspects of the cases of pediatric intoxications in the UHC during the period of Covid-19, in order to assess the repercussions of this pandemic on the profile of these intoxications, in terms of number and incriminated products. Material and method. — This is a retrospective descriptive comparative study of intoxication cases admitted to the pediatric emergency department of the University Hospital of Fez spread over 2 years; from March 1, 2019 to February 2021; comparing intoxications admitted during the period of Covid-19 with the previous year. Results. — The emergency department recorded 132 cases of intoxication during the Covid-19 period (compared to 104 cases in 2019). Fez was always the most concerned city (66.21% against 69.02% in 2019). The cases emanated from the urban environment in (58.78%). The accidental circumstance was the most frequent, with an increase from 77.88% in 2019 to 82.02%. The rate of cases of envenomation that consulted was almost similar; children are more exposed to scorpion stings (73.52%) than snake bites. The analysis of incriminated products was marked by the increase of Caustics (20.38% in 2019 to 24.24% in 2020), and the decrease of pesticides (19.41% in 2019 to 13.63%). The symptomatology was dominated by neurological signs in 25.75% of cases, followed by respiratory disorders (18.18%). The evolution was favorable in 95.46%, and death occurred in 4.54% of cases compared to 3.84% in2019. The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the use of antidotes.
Highlights
The emergence of the COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease2019) pandemic has risen to be a significant global public health concern [1], that promoted a drastic and sudden change in the way we organize ourselves as social human beings
COVID-19 pandemic, most parents had to reorganize their lives to deal with working at home in addition to children's management, this sudden overload has been putting parents under extra stressful conditions, potentially increasing the risk of children face enormous dangers[5]
During the period of our study, the paediatric emergency department of the CHU Hassan II recorded 132 cases of intoxication during the Covid-19 period compared to 104 cases in 2019, with an augmentation of 28 cases during the Covid-19 period
Summary
The emergence of the COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease2019) pandemic has risen to be a significant global public health concern [1], that promoted a drastic and sudden change in the way we organize ourselves as social human beings. Among children, the circumstances of intoxication are generally accidental and favoured by the deconditioning of the product and the non-respect of safety standards by some manufacturers [6]. This problem is aggravated by the presence of an informal market whose products are not subject to labelling or control of safety conditions [7]. More than 1000 deaths were recorded during the thirty years of the study, scorpionic envenomation, ingestions of toxic plants and the therapeutic errors are the most common cause of toxic deaths [8] Moroccan studies in this field are rare, and the only study carried out by the CAPM on this subject was only interested in the characteristics of the intoxicated and the incriminated products. The present work will describe the epidemiological, clinical and evolutionary aspects of the cases of pediatric intoxications in the CHU Hassan II during the period of Covid-19, in order to assess the repercussions of this pandemic on the profile of these intoxications, in terms of number and incriminated products
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