Coronavirus: Poison control bombarded with calls about cleaning products, CDC says

‘The timing of these reported exposures corresponded to increased media coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic’

The number of calls to poison control centres in the US has increased since the start of the coronavirus outbreak.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed in a report released on Monday, that “the daily number of calls to poison centres increased sharply” in March, for cleaning and disinfectant exposures.

Using data from the National Poison Data System, the report found that between January and March 2020, centres received 45,550 calls relating to exposures, which is a 20% increase from the same period in 2019.

Although the number of calls to poison control centres increased last month, the CDC was unable to find a definitive link between Covid-19 and the increased exposures.

“Although NPDS data do not provide information showing a definite link between exposures and Covid-19 cleaning efforts, there appears to be a clear temporal association with increased use of these products,” the report read.

The CDC added that the increase is likely to have been affected by a number of factors related to the outbreak.

“The timing of these reported exposures corresponded to increased media coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, reports of consumer shortages of cleaning and disinfection products, and the beginning of some local and state stay-at-home order,” it read.

The report also found that a majority of the total calls to poison centres, were attributed to exposures of children aged five and under.

One case study included in the report, was that of a pre-school aged child, who ingested an unknown quantity from a bottle of hand sanitiser she found at her home.

Her blood alcohol level was found to be three times that of the driving limit, but she recovered and was discharged from hospital within 48 hours.

According to a tracking project hosted by Johns Hopkins University, nationally there are upwards of 814,587 people who have tested positive for coronavirus. The death toll has reached at least 42,458.