Surveillance of pesticide poisoning in an East and a West Malaysian hospital: characteristics of pesticide poisoning and the early impact of a national Paraquat ban.

Background: Previous studies have shown that pesticide bans were associated with reduced fatal pesticide self-poisoning cases in high, and low-and-middle-income countries. We aimed to investigate the characteristics of pesticide poisoning patients admitted to two Malaysian hospitals and the early impact of the national paraquat ban implemented on 1st January 2020 in a culturally heterogenous South-East-Asian upper-middle-income setting.

Methods: Data were collected from an East (Bintulu) and a West (Ipoh) Malaysian hospital medical records in 2015-2021 and 2018-2021, respectively.