children dying whilst playing

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Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2010 6:55 am

http://english.aljazeera.net//news/africa/2010/06/201064182049228431.html

Apparently the children, victims of lead poinsoning, were in the habit of playing in the lead contaminated waters used to refine the gold.

More from the beeb here

Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2010 2:09 pm

Children are most at risk and a tragedy is that their mental development will be permanently affected. Having had elevated lead levels I know first hand what it does. A heavy metal overburden makes a makes a child or older person very lethargic and susceptible to dying from dysentery or malaria. Litharge is lead oxide PbO and litharge of gold is litharge mixed with red lead Pb3O4. I think that is where the word lethargic originates from. When entire villages have no children it would be safe to say that it was in the water.

Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2010 5:44 pm

I worked with lead-based solder all day every day for several years, and experienced lethargy and a general feeling of being out of sorts which persisted for years afterwards. I never made the connection at the time.

Poor kids.

Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2010 1:30 pm

Interesting posts, and you´ve reminded me of a friend of mine, a talented potter, who had to stop this activity which was their love and livelihood because of lead poisoning from the glazing.

Here´s the beeb´s update on the matter.

Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2010 10:33 pm

necro or update?
My bolding.

27 August 2010 Last updated at 16:47 GMT
'Dozens of children die' in Nigerian lead poisoning
Doctors said when the poisoning was discovered that the situation would get worse As many as 30 children have died of lead poisoning in northern Nigeria over the past week, authorities believe.

Scores of people - mostly children - have already died this year in Zamfara state, poisoned by lead-contaminated waste from illegal gold mining.

The latest deaths occurred in a remote village near the town of Anka.

But officials have not been able to confirm the reports because rainy-season downpours have prevented them from getting to the area.

Lead poisoning has killed at least 160 since June, when visiting doctors realised children in the region were dying in unusually large numbers.

Investigating scientists traced the source of the poisoning to soil contaminated with lead which had been dumped in water sources by miners.

Slow death

For weeks in June teams worked to try to decontaminate a number of villages, by scraping away topsoil.

LEAD POISONING

Children suffer more because their size makes them more vulnerable to the effects
Symptoms include lethargy, abdominal pain, vomiting, constipation and headaches
Children in particular may develop encephalopathy - seizures, delirium and coma
For mild poisoning it may be sufficient to remove the patient from the source
More severe poisoning will need medical treatment, but may prove fatal
But experts at the time said that many more children would be affected by the slow-acting poison.

There are fears that the rains may have washed the poison back into wells and other water sources.

In their attempts to extract gold, deadly amounts of lead were released - it is thought that soil containing lead deposits was dumped in water sources and in places where children played.

The deaths were discovered during the country's annual immunisation programme, when officials realised that in several villages there were virtually no children.

Villagers said the children had died of malaria and it was only when a team from international aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres took blood tests from local people that the high concentrations of lead were discovered.

Zamfara State had recently employed a Chinese company to mine gold in the area, adds our correspondent.

But villagers had also attempted to capitalise by digging for the precious metal themselves - an illegal activity in Nigeria.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11111799

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