The Drug and Poison Information Bureau

The Drug and Poisons Information Bureau, run by the Division of Clinical Pharmacology, was established in 1987 and began providing information service in January 1988. It gives advice to health care professionals on the diagnosis and treatment of all forms of poisoning and adverse reactions to medicines as well as on drug usage in general. It is manned by information officers who are nurses, pharmacists or junior physicians. These front-line staff are always backed up by an on-call consultant physician with a specialist interest in clinical pharmacology and toxicology. The Bureau has access to various international databases listing over 500,000 drugs, chemical entities and other items as well as own accumulated local knowledge based on several decades of clinical experience and research. The scope of its experience ranges from modern medicines, traditional Chinese medicines and other remedies, to seafood and pesticide poisoning. Since its inception over two decades ago, it has conducted substantial research. It is the leading centre in the region in terms of output of peer-reviewed publications, which currently total over 120.

On 28 November 2005, the New Territories East Cluster of Hospital Authority and the Drug and Poisons Information Bureau (DPIB), Faculty of Medicine, the Chinese University of Hong Kong jointly established the Prince of Wales Hospital Poison Treatment Centre (PWHPTC). This is the first designated centre in Hong Kong for the management of patients with acute poisoning under a multi-disciplinary team led by consultant physicians and clinical (medical) toxicologists. The Centre is based at the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, PWH. Apart from providing specialist care for patients with poisoning, PWHPTC functions as the training centre in clinical toxicology for health care professionals. As in the past years, the clinical toxicologists based at PWH will provide expert advice to hospital doctors working in other parts of Hong Kong.