GET READY FOR MORE NOVICHOK
BY CHRIS HUGHES HEALTH chiefs sent out a warning over fears of more Novichok outbreaks just days before the nerve agent killed tragic Dawn Sturgess.
A medical expert briefed doctors across several counties in southern England on how to treat victims of the Russian toxin.
The dossier circulated was written five days after mother-of-three Dawn, 44, and partner Charlie Rowley were contaminated by what police yesterday described as a “high dose of the poison”.
The document makes it clear that emergency staff close to the Salisbury attack and the Amesbury outbreak, both in Wiltshire, fear the UK could be rocked by more Novichok cases.
On Sunday, Home Secretary Sajid Javid had claimed during a visit to Amesbury that the “risk to the public remains very low”.
But the leaked health warning contradicts his assurances.
Detailing a list of the nerve agent’s horrific symptoms, the expert tells medics at hospitals how to react if “you get in trouble” after an outbreak.
One senior health official asks recipients of the email to keep the memo, written on July 5, and “use should you be confronted by patients incapacitated for no clear reason and think they may be subject to a chemical attack from Russia”.
In the memo, drafted by a senior emergency medical consultant at a hospital we have agreed not to name, recipients are told: “Regarding nerve agents. I’ve written a guide which might be helpful to circulate.
“There’s lots of experience in Salisbury if you are in trouble.”
The consultant advises that Novichok can penetrate “through skin, ingestion, inoculation, inhalation”.
They also tell doctors and consultants that they should keep themselves safe by wearing “long gowns and double-glove with long gloves”.
Readers are furthermore advised to wear “face and eye protection”.
There is chilling detail on how to identify patients with possible Novichok poisoning. The memo states: “Patients will present with: pinpoint pupils, hypotension, hypothermia, copious secretions, diarrhoea, weakness, twitching muscles, respiratory insufficiency, seizures. Death is by pulseless electrical activity arrest, respiratory arrest.” The expert asks
colleagues to send urine and blood samples from possible cases for analysis at a poison centre in the Midlands.
Police have not found the item that poisoned Dawn and Charlie, 45, who received a high dose of Novichok through touching a vessel containing it.
Dawn died on Sunday, months after former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and daughter Yulia were infected by Novichok placed on their front door.
Both have recovered and are convalescing at a secret MI5 location while police probe the suspected Kremlin assassination attempt.
The separate murder investigation launched into the death of Dawn could last for months.
Wiltshire Police chief constable Kier Pritchard admitted it was a “real concern” that the contaminated container which poisoned Dawn and Charlie had not been found.
Asked whether his force had failed to protect the public, he replied: “We have heard today there is no suggestion any contaminate exposure has come from any of those sites that have previously been secure and are currently in the process of being decontaminated.”
Pritchard added that 21 people – eight police officers or staff, a paramedic, nine medical staff and three members of the public – had sought medical attention and all tests had proven negative.
Meanwhile, a red Ford Transit van Charlie was a passenger in on June 30 has been recovered and sent for testing at the Government laboratory at Porton Down. Three other men who also travelled in the van have been tested and show no signs of exposure to Novichok.
Searches by counter-terror police and local officers continued yesterday in Amesbury, where Charlie lived and he and Dawn fell ill, and Salisbury, where Dawn lived.
Paying tribute to Dawn yesterday, Prime Minister Theresa May said in the Commons: “I am sure the House will join me in sending our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Dawn Sturgess, who passed away last night.
“The police and security services are working urgently to establish the full facts in what is now a murder
investigation.”