Eliminating Arsenic Consumption: Switching Drinking Water Sources through Intensive Awareness Programmes in Rural Bangladesh

M Zabed Hossain, M Showkat Gani

Abstract

Chronic exposure of arsenic poisoning can cause adverse health effects including skin and lung cancer (Hopenhayn-Rich et al., 1998). The process may take between five and fifteen years to reveal clinical manifestations of arsenicosis (Guha Mazumdar et al., 1998). Human sensitivity to the toxic effects of inorganic arsenic exposure is likely to vary based on genetics, metabolism, diet, health status, sex, and other possible factors, and risk of toxic effects is high among children and malnourished people (National Research Council, 2000). Hundreds of millions of people have been exposed to arsenic contamination through drinking water in various countries of the world (Kamal and Chowdhury, 2002). The problem of arsenic poisoning in the groundwater of Bangladesh has been described as the biggest mass scale poisoning in its history (Smith et al., 2000). As large part of the population of the country has been drinking water contaminated with arsenic at concentrations >0.05 mg/l (Dhar et al., 1997; Biswas et al., 1998; Khan et al., 1997; Bagla and Kaiser, 1996), the permissible limit by the World Health Organization. About 95% of the approximately 120 million people drink tubewell water in Bangladesh drawn from alluvial aquifers underlying the Ganges and Brahmaputra delta (UNICEF, 1999; Hoque et al., 2001). Some 30-70 million people of the country are thought to be exposed to this poisoning (Dhaka Community Hospital, 1998). More than 14,000 arsenicosis patients were identified and the figure is increasing with the progress of patient survey programme (Chowdhury, 2002). Apart from health, environmental and nutritional damage caused by arsenic poisoning, its socioeconomic consequences at family and community level are also crucial.

Full Text: PDF