• Emilio Moreno Millán, Francisco Bonilla, Juan Manuel Alonso, and Fernando Casado.
• Department of Health, Regional Government of Andalucia, Seville, Spain. dseemm@csalud.junta-andalucia.es
• Eur J Emerg Med. 2004 Feb 1;11(1):39-43.

IntroductionThe World Athletics Championships are considered to be the third most important sporting event on the planet. Before the celebration of their seventh meeting in Seville, Spain, the need for medical care, as in the Olympic Games, was supposed to be low and of minimal complexity. It was nevertheless judged necessary to install strategically located assistance points, and to evaluate the results of this intervention. METHODOLOGY AND DESIGN: Following the planning phase carried out by a multidisciplinary commission of health, set up by the Organizer Committee, which prepared protocols, that were elaborated by five working groups, the operation developed during the World Championships in Athletics is described. Five clinics and several first aid stations were set up in the stadium and its surroundings, in hotels, warm-up and training tracks, the high-speed train station and the airport, as well as strategic points in the city.ResultsThere were 1338 medical consultations, and 35 patients (2.6%) were transferred to hospitals. 21 codes of the International Classification of Disease constituted 50.4% of the case mix. Injuries, which accounted for 36.1% of all medical visits, were more common among athletes (48.9%) than among other groups. Injuries accounted for 30.5% of all other groups combined. Spectators and other groups accounted for most (86.8 and 63.1%, respectively) of the 276 visits concerning contusions and 165 visits for heat-related illness. The overall physician treatment rate was 19.3% for athletes and 4.5/10 000 for spectators.ConclusionThe preparation of a potent pre-hospital service, strategically located and dedicated to the event, was able to solve the problems that occurred. Nevertheless, a hospital alert and a coordination centre are also necessary. These data should be useful in planning medical resources for future mass sporting events.

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