7,000 to 16,000 poisoning cases annually recorded in Algeria

Doctors and university academics revealed that Algeria is recording 7,000 to 16,000 food and drug poisoning cases per year while they say the circulating figures are still inexact.

• The summer season is considered as the most vulnerable firstly because of food poisoning, then drugs’ poisoning, insects’ chemicals and poisoning weeds. As for poisoning that occurs in workplaces such as gas stations, paint factories and quarries, they remain unknown especially that only 25 workers out of 100,000 are subjected to medical scrutiny.
• In the national forum on poisoning supervised by Avicenna medical sciences association in Blida (70 km west of Algiers), specialists in medicine and education said food is the first problem which exposes people’s lives to risk of injury poisoning.
• According to them, summer is the appropriate season of its occurrence and the main cause is the way consumed fast foods are kept, such as eggs, meat.
• Gynaecologic Dr.Okid said that pregnant women and their foetus are exposed to death at a rate exceeding 60 percent. The foetus’ congenital malformation is not excluded as well.
• “The biggest fear occurs when pregnant women take headache medication when they are ill without consulting a doctor,” added Dr. Okid.