Leah Utyasheva: Preventing deaths from pesticide self-poisoning

Intentional pesticide poisoning is a major clinical and public health problem in agricultural communities in low-income countries. Every year at least 150,000 people die after ingesting pesticides, the majority in the Asia-Pacific and African regions. Most deaths follow ingestion of highly hazardous pesticides. People die because they stop breathing, frequently before they arrive at hospitals where they could receive life-saving treatment. 

One of the key barriers to pesticide suicide reduction is a lack of human capacity for effective pesticide regulation, such as gathering data on the specific HHPs most commonly used for suicide in the country, and an absence of mechanisms for surveillance of pesticide poisoning. The Centre for Pesticide Suicide Prevention aims to substantially reduce the global number of pesticide suicides, by working with national pesticide regulators and the UN to identify the hazardous pesticides through research and reduce their use through regulation.

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