The health impact assessment of mercury on artisanal and small scale miners and revealed chronic mercury intoxicated patients / Монголын Анагаах Ухаан

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION:In connection with request and financial assistance of Swiss Development Agency ‘’Mercury exposureand health impact assessment study among small scale miners in mercury free technology, wasconducted by researchers of Toxicology division of NCPH.GOALTo determine mercury exposure level in biological samples of local small scale miners from mercury freetechnology introduced area. To reveal chronic mercury intoxicated patients,MATERIALS AND METHODS:Totally 147 artisanal miners from 33 cooperatives for small scale mining from Bayan-Îvoo soum ofBayankhongor, Bornuur sum of Tuv, Bayangol, Mandal and Tunkhel sum of Selenge province areparticipated in this study and the study was performed by cross sectional study methods during April toDecember, 2014.Over all 147 participants were in the first part of study, 60.5% out of 147 (89 participants) were in secondparts, and another 35.4% (52 people) were participated to the third parts of study. The participants wereundergone in to toxicological, dermatological and neurological examinations and the WHO guidance formercury exposure determination was followed in this study.RESULTS:On the results of all testing we revealed that there were 2 cases of chronic mercury intoxicated patientsfrom each Bayangol Bornuur soum, 2 from Mandal soum, and 3 from Bayanovoo soum.Overall 7 patientswere diagnosed as chronic mercury intoxicated and it comprised 4.7%of (n=147) all involved participants.We have observed that average height of total medical examination number was (2.9) in Bornuur soum.It indicated that there will have higher number of patients would exist in Bornuur soum than others.Ourstudy result has shown that neurological symptoms like tremor and imbalance were more diagnosedamong participants from Mandal and Bayngol soums. It implies that the health of the small scale minersfrom this soum more affected and needed to be investigating further.CONCLUSIONS:Mercury is still being used among artisanal gold miners even thoughit is still illegal. Further medicalevaluation and assistance needed to be taken for newly diagnosed 7 patients.