Impact of mercury to be assessed by Health Ministry with $12M WWF grant

Jun 08, 2010 News

Intended to garner greater understanding of the health implications resulting from occupation and other forms of exposure to mercury among vulnerable members in mining communities, a grant agreement was inked yesterday between the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Guianas and the Ministry of Health.
The grant, valued at $12M was handed over to Minister of Health, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, at a simple ceremony at Herdmanston Lodge, Lamaha Street, Queenstown.
According to WWF’s Country Manager, Dr Patrick Williams, the fund is intended to facilitate a follow-up study which “we hope can allow us the opportunity to integrate all of the different studies we have done so that we can have an overall picture of how mercury is impacting on our communities and on individuals, including miners and others who work in the mining sector.”
Based on previous studies undertaken in interior locations by WWF, there are suspicions that mercury is already impacting the environment, Dr Williams noted.
He pointed to the fact that mercury is a kind of chemical which can prove to be very difficult to remove once it enters the physical and human environment. “We have seen some signs from the research that people have been negatively impacted by mercury in the mining sector. So today’s (yesterday) effort is an attempt to consolidate what we have done and hopefully it can help us towards taking some decisive action with reference to policies about how we use mercury, whether in fact it should continue to be part of the arrangement for gold mining in Guyana.”
With the grant, Gold Mining and Abatement Officer, Rickford Vieira, said that a renewed study will go a bit further in that it will not merely check to see if persons have elevated levels of mercury in their system but rather will entail a thorough health assessment.
This project, he said, will also incorporate building capacity at the Ministry of Health to conduct analyses of assessment of persons that are impacted by mercury to determine if they are showing signs and symptoms and how they can best seek treatment.
“We would like to continue working with the Ministry of Health. This is our first engagement and hopefully we can continue this in a longer and sustainable manner for the benefit of our future generation.”
According to Director of Environmental Health, within the Health Ministry, Dr Ashok Sookdeo, the collaboration had its genesis early last year following a discussion with the WWF’s Gold Mining Officer.
As such, he said, that the Environmental Department, which will coordinate the study, was tasked with developing a proposal for the study. After considering previous studies, Dr Sookdeo noted that a decision was then made to specifically examine occupational exposure to mercury.
He noted that the study will not only target miners, but also gold jewellers and dentists, whose use of mercury will be carefully assessed. The project, he said, is slated to have a 10-month duration with some key deliverables: that medical personnel are more aware of the health implications, signs, symptoms and treatment of mercury poisoning; environmental education and awareness of miners and other users of mercury on its potential health effect and precautionary measures to minimise intake of mercury in the human body; a technical report examining the correlation between the use and the presence and the effect of mercury in the human body; a cold vapour atomic absorption spectrophotometer will be made available to the National Reference Laboratory and medical technologists will be trained in its use and an advisory on the dangers of mercury for the at-risk occupational group is developed.
Minister Ramsammy regarded the collaboration between his Ministry and WWF as a very important partnership which will advance, further, a very important environmental health issue that is already under scrutiny.
According to him, the link between mercury and its effect on health has been made a long time ago.
“In every country mercury has been a subject for health investigation. We also know that on an international basis decisions are being made…the European Union, for example, has taken the decision that mercury production for exports will be phased out in a few years…” Accordingly, the Minister noted that there are international initiatives that will curtail the production and export of mercury as people are now recognising the serious impact of the chemical on health.

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Impact of mercury to be assessed by Health Ministry with $12M WWF grant

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