In crisis situations, most frequently during transportation catastrophes or terrorist attacks, the most important thing is to organize and conduct rescue operations (in case of hazard to a larger number of people). Thus, materials contaminated with chemical warfare agents are a serious source of poisoning, even more so in shelters or isolated rooms. What is extremely important is also the knowledge that most CWAs show good or very good sorptive properties and ability to penetrate various materials (wood, rubber, fabric, skin and the like). This means that after this time only 50% of the blocked enzyme can be reactivated. The importance of immediate administration of an antidote is proved by the fact that the half-life of ‘aging’ of the enzyme-organophosphorus compound complex is very short, e.g.: for AChE (acetylcholinesterase)-soman complex it is only 3.5 minutes, while for AChE-sarin – about 18 minutes. The Table 1 below shows human toxicity of some chemical warfare agents. Poisoning symptoms develop instantly, thus necessitating application of adequate treatment, frequently including intensive care. Even small doses of these substances cause clinical poisoning accompanied by the syndrome of muscarinic-like and nicotinic-like symptoms, as well as central nervous system symptoms. The most toxic among chemical warfare agents are the derivatives of organophosphorus compounds. They can be exemplified by psychogases, such as LSD-25 and BZ, as well as irritants (tear gasses), such as CS, CN and CR, employed by the police to incapacitate and harass for a short time. It seems that terrorists rarely make use of incapacitating toxic agents, which cause only short, transient disturbances in human psyche and motor activity. Depending on their effect on the human body, there are mainly nerve toxic agents, such as: sarin, soman and VX, and blister toxic agents, such as yperite and lewisite. Nowadays, the most likely use of chemical warfare agents (CWAs) can take place during a terrorist attack.
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