Queensland Health is investigating after five people were hospitalised with symptoms of ingesting rat poison in the South East.<\/p>\n
Chief Health Officer Catherine McDougall said authorities were working to determine the source.<\/p>\n
“Five individuals presented in the last week, from a similar geographical area, with symptoms consistent with brodifacoum poisoning,” she said.<\/p>\n
“Thankfully, all are fine and receiving treatment.<\/p>\n
“Clinicians have been asked to monitor for presentations with similar symptoms. This is routine when patterns in patient presentations are identified.”<\/p>\n
Brodifacoum is commonly found in rat poison and reduces vitamin K, which is essential for blood to clot.<\/p>\n
It can cause bleeding if ingested by humans, such as bleeding gums, easy bruising and blood in urine or stool.<\/p>\n
Authorities are urging all hospitals, GPs and pathology laboratories to be alert to the possibility of brodifacoum poisoning following the possible poisoning cluster.<\/p>\n
It is understood all five cases were identified in the Metro South Health region, which includes Logan and Princess Alexandra hospitals.<\/p>\n
‘Nothing to be alarmed about’<\/p>\n
Dr McDougall said there was “nothing for the community to be alarmed about at this time” and Queensland Health would notify the community if there was a risk to public health.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Catherine McDougall says clinicians have been asked to monitor for presentations with similar symptoms. (Supplied: Queensland Health)<\/p>\n
“I encourage anyone with concerns about their health to see their doctor, present to the emergency department or contact 13 43 25,” she said.<\/p>\n
According to Queensland Health, it has not been established how much rat poison is needed to get sick, as it varies from person to person.<\/p>\n
The antidote for proven poisoning is vitamin K. Exactly how this is given will depend on the person’s clinical condition.<\/p>\n
As brodifacoum is a long-acting anticoagulant (a drug that prevents blood clotting), treatment may be needed for some weeks, but this can vary from case to case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queensland Health is investigating after five people were hospitalised with symptoms of ingesting rat poison in the South…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,135912,99,104258,135911,8920],"class_list":["post-223901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-brodifacoum","tag-business","tag-catherine-mcdougall","tag-ingesting-rat-poison","tag-queensland-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}