A threat to children’s cognitive abilities: WB study

Lead pollution is causing cognitive deficiency among children and fatal cardiovascular diseases among adults in Bangladesh, according to a World Bank report.

The report estimates that the level of harm due to lead exposure is far greater than previous estimations.

The Lancet Planetary Health journal on Tuesday published the World Bank's study titled "Global health burden and cost of lead exposure in children and adults: a health impact and economic modeling analysis".

According to the study, lead pollution in Bangladesh has serious implications for children below five years of age, causing a loss of over 20 million (20,596,306) IQ points, and a very high economic cost of $10,897 million, which is 3.6 percent of the country's annual GDP.

About 140,000 (138,054) cardiovascular disease (CVD) related deaths among adults aged 25 years or older due to lead exposure exceeded the previous estimation with a four times higher mortality rate.

The study recommended a 10-point action plan to address the lead pollution crisis, which includes analysing the lead sources and designing source-specific interventions, building blood lead level surveillance, taking multi-sectoral efforts, increasing monitoring, reviewing the existing policy and enforcing laws and regulations, remediating toxic sites, building capacity of the stakeholders to mitigate the issue, and raising awareness at the national level.

The combined cost of these health effects was US$ 28,633 million which is a loss of six to nine percent of the country's GDP in 2019.

In Bangladesh, the major sources of lead exposure include used-lead acid battery recycling in informal settings, lead in paints, aluminium cookware, ceramic food ware, spices, toys, cosmetics, food, electronic waste, fertilisers, and cultured fish feed.

"We may not see it, taste it or smell it, and early symptoms may be hard to identify, but we know that exposure to lead can have devastating consequences on a child's health, learning and development," said Sheldon Yett, Unicef representative to Bangladesh.

"When children are not able to reach their full potential, this is a tragedy not only for these specific children but their entire communities," she added.

She called for national-level surveillance and assessments of possible contaminants in households to identify lead exposure.

"Decorative and industrial paints still contain high lead levels, while several national and multinational companies still do not meet the accepted standards," said Dr Shahriar Hossain, Secretary General of Eco-Social Development Organization.

He said there is a lot to do to protect the future generation from the effects of lead poisoning.

He said the implementation of existing laws, and maintaining industrial paint standards are crucial in this regard. He also said implementing polluter-pay principles will help to curb industrial-level pollution.

Continuous advocacy and multi-sectoral actions involving various stakeholders are also needed," he added.

Dr Md Mahbubur Rahman, project coordinator of WASH, Health System and Population Studies Division, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) said, "Our continuous research and accumulation of substantial evidence enabled us to realise the magnitude of the lead pollution in Bangladesh. It is high time to design interventions taking the evidence into account to mitigate the problem at the source."

Dr Mahfuzar Rahman, Bangladesh country director, Pure Earth, said preventing lead exposure has become a top priority considering its profound health and economic impact.

"Pure Earth's Rapid market analysis of about 200 items in three districts showed the widespread sources of lead in daily commodities such as metallic and ceramic food ware, paint, rice/starch, and toys, posing potentially serious health risks. Strict regulations and increased investment are imperative to further research and implement risk reduction strategies," he added.

The study recommended a 10-point action plan to address the lead pollution crisis, which includes analysing the lead sources and designing source-specific interventions, building blood lead level surveillance, taking multi-sectoral efforts, increasing monitoring, reviewing the existing policy and enforcing laws and regulations, remediating toxic sites, building capacity of the stakeholders to mitigate the issue, and raising awareness at the national level.