Overview

These guidelines provide a recommendation on iodine thyroid blocking (ITB), via oral administration of stable iodine, as an urgent protective action in responding to a nuclear accident. This recommendation aims to support emergency planners, policy makers, public health specialists, clinicians and other relevant stakeholders, in order to strengthen public health preparedness for radiation emergencies in WHO Member States as required by the International Health Regulations (IHR) and in line with the international safety standards (GSR Part 7). The scope of the guidelines is confined to public health aspects of planning and implementation of ITB before and during a radiation emergency, such as dosage and timing of ITB administration, adverse effects of stable iodine, its packaging, storage, and distribution.

These guidelines supersede the 1999 WHO Guidelines for Iodine Prophylaxis following Nuclear Accidents.

Contents

• Acknowledgements
• Acronyms
• Executive summary
  • Background
  • Purpose and objectives
  • Target audience
  • How were these guidelines developed?
  • Public health considerations of ITB implementation
• 1. Introduction
  • 1.1. Rationale
  • 1.2. Objectives
  • 1.3. Scope
  • 1.4. Target audience
• 2. Methods
  • 2.1. Process of developing these guidelines
  • 2.2. Management of conflicts of interest
  • 2.3. Formulating questions in PICO format
  • 2.4. Evidence search and retrieval
  • 2.5. Method used to assess the quality of evidence
• 3. Recommendation and public health recommendations
  • 3.1. Public health considerations of ITB implementation
  • 3.2. Research priorities
• 4. Dissemination and implementation
  • 4.1. Dissemination
  • 4.2. Implementation monitoring
  • 4.3. Review-by date
• 5. References
• Annex 1. Composition of guideline advisory groups
• Annex 2. Evidence-torecommendation framework
• Glossary

Suggested citation:

Iodine thyroid blocking: guidelines for use in planning for and responding to radiological and nuclear emergencies. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2017. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.

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