Director-General of Blood Banks and Laboratories at Ministry of Health, Dr. Ibrahim Al Omar stated that eight accredited centers for poisons control and forensic chemistry in Saudi Arabia have been established, The Ministry has also been preparing to rehabilitate a poisons control and forensic chemistry department in jazan to have the 9th center, he said.
After opening a course on "Adjusting Medications as per Blood Level" on Monday, Dr. Al Omar clarified that poisons control and forensic chemistry centers handle the tasks of forensic medicine that are characterized by their importance, in both forensic and security spheres.
He said such centers tasks include the emergency toxicology screening that is specialize in the examination of biological and non-biological samples of hospital inpatients in order to diagnose suspected poisoning cases
In addition, poisons control and forensic chemistry centers conduct Therapeutic Drug Monitoring (TDM), where several important drugs are monitored such as antibiotics and some medications for heart diseases, epilepsy and tumors in blood samples from patients treated with these medications in order to adjust the dose, to avoid any side effects and diagnose non-compliance in some patients, helping physicians to achieve the best therapeutic response, he added.
Poisons control and forensic chemistry centers are also specialized in providing Drug & Poison Information services. Such a service supports physicians and the public to know about any drug; its nature, effects, pharmacokinetics, side effects, contraindications and how to deal with acute and chronic drug poisoning.
On the other hand, Supervisor of poisons control and forensic chemistry Centers, Ph. Raed bin Abdul Aziz Al Khayyal stated that poisons control and forensic chemistry centers are located in Riyadh, Makkah, Madina, Dammam, Jeddah, Qassim, Tabuk, Assir and finally Jazan, where the center is currently under preparation to become the 9th one.
Being organized by poisons control and forensic chemistry center in Riyadh, under supervision of General Directorate of Laboratories and Blood Banks in cooperation with the General Directorate of Training and Scholarship, the Course .
comes in the context of searching for cutting-edge knowledge in the medicine world regarding clinical and analytical aspects. Additionally, the course is regarded as one of many courses to be offered in the Kingdom to be participated by several pharmaceutical and analytical specialists.