KATHMANDU: Do you have plans to paint your house in blazing colours to make it attractive? If you happen to be harbouring such thoughts, it is now time to shun it or else you will be risking your health according to experts, who claim that the colours used to paint the walls have harmful lead component.

If you happen to be harbouring such thoughts, it is now the time to shun it or else you will be risking your health, according to experts, who claim that the colours used to paint the walls have harmful lead component.

This crucial information was shared at the launch of an awareness programme organised jointly by the Ministry of Health, the Centre for Public Health and Environmental Development and the IPEN with an aim to make Nepal lead-free and to save people from lead poisoning here, on Sunday.

Experts have emphasised that around 853,000 people die annually in the world due to lead poisoning. As much as 6.6 per cent excess lead in the body may invite heart diseases and, in the long run, cause cancer.

The lead poisoning may be transferred from a mother to her baby during pregnancy and, in men, it can cause high blood pressure and even depleted performance of sperm production.

Meanwhile, a week-long international programme aimed at creating awareness over the issue is being held this week (October 23 to 29).

In a health survey carried out by IPEN with 312 blood samples taken from Dharan and 304 from Kathmandu, 65 per cent of the total blood samples examined showed they had the lead content. Among the children examined in Lalitpur and Bhaktapur, 90 per cent exhibited more than five mg of lead content.

In Nepal, the government has formulated a law barring the use of more than 90 PPM lead content in the colour paint, but none of the colour manufacturers were found to have mentioned the amount of lead content in their paint colour buckets.

At the programme, CEPHED Executive Director and environmentalist Ram Charitra Sah called for bringing the 90 PPM threshold to zero level for the sake of people's good health and to protect their right to live.

Central Union of Painters, Plumbers, Electro and Construction Workers -Nepal (CUPPEC-Nepal) Chairman Krishna Baral, noted that the lead content is not only found in paint colours, but in vehicles' brake systems and corrugated zinc sheets as well.