Major drive to devise ‘gold standard’ response to chemical or nuclear emergency

A team led by researchers from Loughborough University is developing a number of advanced methods to help emergency services around the world tackle a CBRN (chemical, biological, radioactive or nuclear) attack or accident.

The new tools include technology to determine casualty exposure to poisons through rapid skin, breath and saliva tests, drone equipment to measure toxic fumes in the atmosphere and crisis communications techniques to stop the spread of fake news.

The multi-million pound TOXI-Triage project was set up to establish novel ways of giving effective and diagnostically sound medical and toxic assessments amid the confusion, disorder and dangers of a CBRN emergency.

While the work started around three years ago, full details are emerging now ahead of a full-scale field trial later this month.

Paul Thomas, Professor of Analytical Science from Loughborough’s Department of Chemistry, who is leading TOXI-Triage, described the project as “truly revolutionary”.

He said: “Over the last four years, some of the strongest teams across Europe have been working together to help ensure society can respond to and tackle a CBRN incident in the best possible way.

“We live in a time where CBRN terrorism is a real threat, and incidents such as the Birling Gap gas cloud and Japan’s Fukushima nuclear crisis illustrate how CBRN incidents can and do occur as a result of human error or a natural disaster.

“The emergency services need to have the best possible information when a CBRN incident occurs, in the quickest time possible without having to put further lives at risk.

“TOXI-Triage has created new hot zone assessment, diagnostic, communications and track and tag triage technologies, along with an integrated system that pulls all the information together in real time.”

Funded by the European Commission, the project brings together 18 teams spanning emergency and health services, defence, industry, and university academics.

One strand of the initiative is focused on developing technologies that enable diagnosis of CBRN agents by analysing a potential casualty’s skin, saliva or breath.

Experts have identified “metabolic markers” present in someone affected by radiation, while data recovered from toxic alcohols and pesticides, which act in a similar manner to nerve agents, are being examined.

Using the markers, a “diagnosis map” has been created which can be used alongside new analysis technology to carry out “rapid triage” of casualties in a CBRN emergency.

The project has also devised:

– Payloads for drones that contain radiological and poison cloud monitoring instrumentation;

– Systems for mapping the environmental impact of an incident and managing decontamination activity;

– Tools to tackle the spread of fake news and improve official communications during an emergency;

– A method of using social media to track a crisis situation as it develops and to help in the deployment of emergency services.

Later this month, the project team will travel to Athens for a full-scale field trial in partnership with Greece’s Ministry of National Defence.

It will be the first time so many new advanced methods and technologies will have been combined to tackle a simulated CBRN crisis, Loughborough University said.

At the end of the project next year, it is anticipated that the technologies and systems will become the “gold standard” for an emergency response.

A terrorist attack involving CBRN materials has the potential to cause harm by contaminating people, animals, buildings, outdoor environments, water supplies and food, according to the Government’s national risk register of civil emergencies.

It adds: “Extremists remain interested in CBRN materials, however alternative methods of attack such as employing firearms or conventional explosive devices remain far more likely.”

The danger posed by chemical weapons was underlined by the Novichok poisoning in Salisbury earlier this year.