Accidental Poisoning in Young Children: an Emergency Medicine Perspective for Pakistan and other Low- and Middle-income Countries and a Call to Action.

Accidental Pediatric Poisoning is an important public health issue for both the developed and developing parts of the globe. It continues to affect a number of children, but in Pakistan and other Low- and Middle-income Countries, little seems to have been done to counter it. As many of these children present to the Emergency Department, our purpose for writing this article was to review biomedical literature regarding childhood-related accidental poisoning in general, and in Pakistan and similar countries, in particular, with an emphasis on their Emergency Departments. Our focus was ages 0 – 5 years. This attempt was meant to be a first step towards gaining a better grasp of the epidemiology, following which we wish to suggest a simple management strategy. Additionally, we hope to identify the commonest accidentally ingested agents in young children in Pakistan, and assess the risk factors for poisoning and the efficacy of possible interventions. Given that accidental ingestions are entirely avoidable, we have focused on preventative steps and treatment. We thus present suggestions in this perspective piece for tackling the problem in resource-limited countries in general, where there is an urgent need for it.