Emergency information
- First Aid after poisoning
In some cases, poisoning by biocidal products may occur even if the products are properly packaged and labelled (e.g. unintentional contact through household accidents, ingestion by small children etc.)
Information on biocidal products received at Umweltbundesamt via the safety data sheet (SDS, cf. section 27 (3) and (4) of the Biocidal Products Act) is therefore passed on to the poison information centre. This information is vital when responding to any medical demand by formulating preventive or curative measures, in particular in emergencies.
The Austrian poison information centre provides a 24-hour service of medical-toxicological advice for both doctors and non-professionals in the event of an emergency. The service includes a first risk estimation and determines whether a medical consultation is necessary or not. No medical advice on treatment, however, is given to non-professionals. Doctors have access to diagnostic, therapeutic and other case-specific details.
Another major task of the poison information centre is documentation. This includes inter alia the archiving of poisoning incidents and associated therapeutic measures, maintenance of commercial toxicological and pharmacological databases as well as other relevant data (e.g. SDSs) and epidemiological and health-statistical analyses.