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Arsenic
can cause cancer in skin, limbs, liver
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News
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March
7, 2000 Ayasha
Begum’s belief regarding safe water, what she had been taught over the
year, turned wrong when a group of development workers in April last year
red-marked their only tube-well and suggested not to drink its water
anymore because it contained toxic “Arsenic”. Arsenic,
a chemical element that is commonly found in the rocks can easily go into
subsoil water in diluted from. People may fall victim of the toxic
chemical as it cannot be seen, tasted or smelled when it is in water.
Presence of Arsenic other than the permissible level of 50 parts Per
Billion (PPB) in the human immune system can damage liver, kidneys and
lungs. In the sever cades, it can cause cancer in the skin and limbs. “Samity
workers, local name of the filed workers of different private voluntary
development organizations, told us to drunk boiled pond or river water. We
did not respond to their instructions. Tell us who will supply firewood to
boil water to drink particularly when we are cooling foods once a day for
want of adequate firewood”, construction worker Sirajul’s wife -
Ayasha at village Ramganj of Bodderbazar union in Sonargaon said. In
the middle of February this year, an affordable three-pitcher Arsenic
filtration system supplied to Ayasha’s family. She first thought it
would not be free of cost. Bangladesh Rural advancement Committee (BR-AC),
one of the implementing agencies of the United Nations Children Fund
(UNICEF) financed 2.5 million-dollar Arsenic Mitigation Projects, donated
the filtration system to her charging on money. According
to a primary survey, more than two person of each household of Sonargaon
Upazila in Narayanganj district are facing different modes of ailment
mainly caused from Arsenic toxicity. “We were told to eat sufficient
green-leafy vegetables in addressing the arsenic related ailment”, two
patents of Satbhayapara in Sonargaon
thana said. Dr
Mahmood Hossain Faruqui of Bangladesh Rural Advancement committee said
that he got positive response after supplementing sufficient quantity of
vitamin A,C and E to the Arsenic patients. He said that a local
Pharmaceutical company began marketing tablet form of the vitamins under
the brand name “Carocet”. Since we don’t have effective clinical
intervention to address the damages caused from acute Arsenic intake, it
is important to create strong antibody against arsenic by taking
sufficient green vegetables. More
than 800 three-pitcher Arsenic filtration systems have been distributed
among the villager of Sonargaon on Narayanganj and Jhikargacha in Jessore
districts free or costs, Ross Nickson, a visiting researcher of BRAC said.
Demands of the low cost filtration system, coasting Taka 230 each, are on
the rise. Pond-sand
filtration system to purify pond and river water, water from deep
tube-wells and rainwater harvesting are the till date alternative sources
of safe water. Philippe
Barragne-Bigot, a UNICEF expert on water and environmental sanitation said
that screening of all tube-wells all over the country had become essential
to understand magnitude of the disaster. The screening must be followed by
the prescription for alternative sources of safe water and identification
of the patients for clinical intervention. The
UNICEF jointly with the Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE) by
now screened 144 thousand tube-wells all over the country and lent support
in the sub-national level to screen 67 thousand other shallow tube-wall. “Laboratory
work is going on by Dr. Walter Kosmus, a professor of Institute of
analytical Chemistry of Graz University, Austria, to develop an arsenic
measuring device called “Arsenator”.
After demonstration at the laboratory of Department of Public Health
Engineering in Comilla recently Sr Kosmus said that the device would be
able to detect even very low presence of Arsenic in the sample water
quickly. Each Arsenator will cost taka one hundred thousand. Professor
Walter Kosmus recently conducted a four-day training workshop for the
chemists and engineers of Department of Public Health Engineering in
Comilla where he demonstrated perfection of the device. The portable
Arsenic detecting device will be capable to carryout hundreds of tests a
day.
Source:
The Bangladesh Observer |