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Affiliation
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Department of Critical Care Medicine, St. John's National Academy of Health Sciences, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. |
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Abstract
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Rodenticides, commonly referred to as “rat poisons,” are chemical agents aimed at eliminating small rodents. The common targets for their use are household rodents i.e. rats/mice, squirrels, gophers, etc. Controlling rodents is imperative as they are vectors for spread of disease, destroy crops/grains, and multiply rapidly.
India being a primarily agrarian country, rodenticides are widely used and also freely available. They are available in various formulations as powders, pastes, pellets, cereal baits, or blocks. Developing a rodenticide has its challenges as rodents do not feed on what appears to be toxic to them (primary bait refusal) and do not feed twice on what they suspect to be poisonous (bait shyness). An ideal rodenticide is one that is highly toxic to rodents in small quantities, nontoxic to nontarget species, and avoids bait shyness and bait refusal.
Rodenticides are classified based on their toxicity as following (refer Table 1):
• Highly toxic: Median lethal dose (LD 50) ranging from 0 to 50 mg/kg body weight
• Moderately toxic: LD 50 ranging from 50 to 500 mg/kg
• Less toxic: LD 50 ≥ 500 mg/kg
In this review, we shall focus on the three main classes of rodenticides, commonly incriminated as agents of poisoning in the Indian subcontinent. They include yellow/white phosphorous, metal phosphides, and 4-hydroxycoumarin derivatives
The global burden of rodenticide poisoning varies from region to region. In the United States, as per the American Association of Poison Control Centers, rodenticides accounted for 0.3% of 2.3 million human exposures as reported to the regional poison control centers.1 The most common agents implicated were the 4-hydroxycoumarins, followed by bromethalin, warfarin, and metal phosphides.
In India, however, the common agents implicated are the metal phosphides, particularly aluminium phosphide. In a retrospective study done in PGI, Chandigarh, aluminium phosphide constituted ...
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Language: en |