A third of the world’s children are badly affected by lead poisoning, and the second most affected region is in sub-Saharan Africa, where 232.5-million children need action to deal with lead blood levels considered dangerous.
South Asia is the worst with 378.7-million children affected.
This is according to University of Johannesburg scientist Hassina Mouri, speaking at the World Science Forum this week at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on the growing field of medical geology.
Mouri said medical geology is a field in which experts use soundly scientific approaches to better understand and define the interactions between the geo-environment and human health.
This field, she says, acknowledges that geo-environmental challenges require a holistic research approach to mitigation and remediation, and that medical geology has “proved to be necessary to address such challenges, provide solutions and define mitigation measures”.
She said many diseases caused by our relationship with geological resources are not explored at the source, and instead, there is too much focus on “remediating or dealing with symptoms”.
This is underscored by the fact that each year 15-million people die from non-communicable diseases between the ages of 30 to 69.
“Consider that 85% of these premature deaths occur in low and middle income countries,” said Mouri, adding the main diseases behind these deaths are cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, cancer, diabetes and mental health conditions.
“Scientists’ role is to understand the causes of health issues that affect especially poor countries. If you want to kill a snake you must start with the head. We need to look at the sources and not just the fallout,” she said.
“Widespread and severe health problems affect millions of people throughout the world, but little attention is paid to these problems and sources.”
Examples of some underlying causes include water toxicity, dust storms and toxic minerals being released, and the anthropogenic (human-made) sources of these include industrialisation and synthetic fertilisers.
This fits into the larger picture of geological injustice whereby Africa is “very rich in terms of natural and mineral resources” and there is fervent mining activity, and yet African societies remain generally poorer than others.
Even where diseases don’t kill people, like fluorosis for example, many lose their ability to work and this “worsens poverty”.
This is compounded by “huge emigration of talented youth from low-income countries seeking better options elsewhere ... Some are given bursaries and study elsewhere but then never come back.
“They leave the continent because of the conditions there.
“To achieve the goals of social justice, it is very important to address environmental injustice. Scientists can play a very important role in this aspect, not just by looking at rocks or mining in our pursuit of minerals and natural resources but also about the environmental challenges involved.”
The World Science Forum is themed on science for social justice, and this is the first time it is being held on African soil.
It ends on Friday.
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