The United Nations International Children鈥檚 Emergency Fund has urged the interim government to take a strategy to build a lead-free Bangladesh as findings from a research show that over 35 million children in Bangladesh have dangerously high lead levels in their blood.聽
Globally, Bangladesh ranks the fourth聽in the number of children affected by lead pollution, said a press release on Tuesday.聽
With a commitment to end life-threatening effects of lead poisoning on children, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change jointly with Unicef, organised a national workshop on Tuesday, marking the International Lead Poisoning Prevention Week.
The workshop showcased evidence and findings from previous research that showed alarming blood lead levels among children, the sources, and the contamination pathways affecting them and raised the importance of having national representative data on blood lead levels.
鈥楲ead and heavy metal poisoning is a silent crisis that demands our immediate and unwavering attention. The interim-government is committed to collaborating with all stakeholders to聽create a lead-free future for all and ending lead poisoning by 2040,鈥� said Syeda Rizwana Hasan, adviser for the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
Rapid urbanisation and industrialisation have increased heavy metal contamination in the environment, exposing children to toxic substances through the air, water, soil, food, toys, paints and cookware, the release reads.
The extent of lead poisoning in women and children is widespread, particularly harmful to young children聽and聽causing lifelong neurological and physical impairments, it added.
UNICEF, with the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research and the International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh detected lead in the blood of all of the 980 children tested in Khulna, Tangail, Patuakhali and Sylhet districts as well as in more than 500 children in Dhaka.
Among these samples, 40 per cent in the four districts and 80 per cent in Dhaka exceeded the 5 micrograms per deciliter blood threshold, the minimum cut-off level of the World Health Organisation.
Any level of lead, however, is not considered safe, and thus screening for lead, and聽eradicating the sources of lead will be a priority for the work of the partnership, the release reads.