Additional protective actions such as evacuation or shelter-in-place, travel and site access control, facility closure, food recall, and goods/materials isolation may serve as stopgap measures to control contaminant spread. Such measures bridge the time between recognition of the incident and containment of the source of the release or decontamination of the area. When taken shortly after recognition of the chemical incident, these actions can be crucial for slowing the spread of contamination in the environment and reducing exposures in populations. In the context of the protection of human and animal health, many of these actions may be referred to as non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI).
Since exposure doses generally determine the severity of injury, NPI are critical to minimizing the impact of a chemical release because they:
- Limit number of people exposed to the chemical, thus minimizing the number of people injured
- Lessen the dose received by those that are exposed, thus reducing their severity of injury
Successful NPI, then, will likely also reduce the need for pharmaceutical interventions and hospital resources (e.g., emergency department (ED) and/or intensive care unit (ICU) beds). Since pharmaceuticals to treat exposure do not exist for most chemicals, NPI may serve as the predominant protective interventions for most chemical incidents involving human or animal exposures. For the minority of chemical exposures for which a pharmaceutical treatment/antidote exists, NPI also bridge the time until such pharmaceuticals arrive to the incident scene/site (see also KPF 6, Augment Provision of Health and Medical Services to the Affected Population).