Poisoning in Morocco, 2010-2025: nationwide trends and predictors of severe and fatal outcomes - 04/11/26
, Hanane Chaoui 2, Houda Sefiani 2Abstract |
Background: Contemporary nationwide evidence on poisoning in Morocco remains limited. We therefore characterized poisoning reports received by the Moroccan Poison Control and Pharmacovigilance Centre (CAPM) from 2010 to 2025, examined temporal and seasonal patterns, and identified factors independently associated with severe and fatal outcomes.
Methods: We conducted a retrospective observational study of routine poisoning notifications, combining three non-consolidated exports from the same national CAPM reporting system. Variables were harmonized across datasets for calendar year, toxicant category, circumstance, route of exposure, residence, region, Poisoning Severity Score (PSS), and outcome. Temporal trends were evaluated using segmented log-linear regression, and independent predictors of severe and fatal outcomes were assessed using multivariable logistic regression.
Results: The cohort comprised 156,747 poisoning reports. Medicines (29.2%), food-related toxicants (17.1%), gases, including carbon monoxide (16.0%), and pesticides/agricultural products (11.0%) accounted for 73.4% of all reports; the other toxicant categories accounted for the remaining 26.6%, while 17.6% involved intentional/self-harm exposure. CAPM notification volume increased during 2010-2014, declined during 2015-2022, and rose again during 2023-2025. These changes reflect surveillance reporting patterns rather than population incidence. The proportion of medicine-related reports increased from 22.5% in 2010 to 38.5% in 2025. Among 107,313 records with known PSS, 5.0% were severe or fatal; among 122,980 records with known outcome, 1,225 deaths occurred (1.0%). Fatal outcome was independently associated with plant poisoning (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 13.50), pesticides/agricultural products (aOR 7.57), gases (aOR 6.64), snake envenomation (aOR 5.93), intentional/self-harm exposure (aOR 3.29), age >=60 years (aOR 2.91), infancy (aOR 2.55), male sex (aOR 1.53), and rural residence (aOR 1.44). Gas-related reports peaked in winter, whereas pesticide poisoning and envenomation were concentrated in summer.
Conclusion: National CAPM surveillance from 2010 to 2025 indicates a growing contribution of medicines to reported poisonings. In contrast, plants, pesticides, gases, snake envenomation, and intentional/self-harm exposures were disproportionately associated with severe or fatal outcomes. These findings support targeted prevention, seasonal preparedness, stronger rural referral pathways and antidote/antivenom capacity, and more complete structured toxicovigilance data. Changes in notification volume should not be interpreted as changes in national poisoning incidence.
Le texte complet de cet article est disponible en PDF.Keywords : Poisoning, Toxicovigilance, Poison Control Centre, Severity, Mortality, Morocco
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