KATHMANDU, OCTOBER 6

Although lead exposure is dangerous to all age groups, it is considerably more harmful to children and the health effects are typically irreversible with a lifelong impact.

Lead is a toxic metal that causes adverse effects on both human health and the environment. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified lead as a probable carcinogen too. Paints, varnishes, lacquers, stains, enamels, glazes, primers, or coatings are used for any purpose.

Paint is typically a mixture of resins, pigments, fillers, salvents and other additives.

Lead paint is composed of more than one lead compound. The younger the child, the more harmful lead can be.

The human foetus is the most vulnerable. A pregnant woman can transfer lead that has accumulated in her body to her developing child. If a nursing mother has lead in her body, it could be transferred to the child through breastfeeding. Evidence of reduced intelligence caused by childhood exposure to lead has led the World Health Organisation to list 'lead-caused mental retardation' as a recognised disease. WHO also identifies it as one of the top ten diseases whose health burden among children is due to modifiable environmental factors. Lead paint is a major source of childhood lead exposure.

A cross-sectional study of related factors in 2015 in Kathmandu valley indicated high blood lead levels in children aged 6 to 36 months. Among 312 children enrolled in the study, 64.4 per cent had high BLL levels. A significant association between BLL and exposure to enamel paints in the household in the form of painting materials used in different parts of the house like walls, windows and doors has been discovered.

The recent study report entitled 'The Toxic Truth: Children Exposure to Lead Pollution Undermines a Generations of Future Potential' by UNICEF and PURE EARTH, 2020 revealed that 1 in every 3 children up to 8 million globally have blood lead levels at or above 5 µg/dL. It demonstrates that 6,719,235 Nepali children (over 65 per cent of the total child population of Nepal) have elevated BLL ( > 5 µg/ dL) and some 3,512,007 children even had BLL over 10 µg/dl as per the upper bound estimates. Nepali children are under an astonishingly extreme level of risk that urgently needs to be addressed.

Likewise, another latest study by the World Bank entitled 'Global health burden and cost of lead exposure in children and adults: a health impact and economic modelling analysis' estimates that children younger than 5 years lost 765 million (95 per cent CI 443–1098) IQ points and that 5,545,000 adults died from cardiovascular disease in 2019 due to lead exposure.

A version of this article appears in the print on October 7, 2023, of The Himalayan Times