Health impacts on workers in landfill in Jeddah City, Saudi Arabia.

All workers (twenty nine workers) in the Jeddah landfill were interviewed. They were asked to answer a precoded questionnaire. Jeddah landfill lies in Breman region on the east of the highway. It was constructed on the year 1982. Its total area is about 1.5 square kilometers. The daily solid waste weight disposed off in the landfill is from three to four thousands tons. There is a network of pipes and wells to collect gases which are burnt. There is no network for the disposal of the leachate. The personnel are 29 they work in shifts. The majority (62.1%) are from Bangladesh. This can be explained by the fact that they are poor, ignorant and work in any job regardless the hazards that my result from such work. It was found that 17.9% had accidents. Errors in dealing with instruments and falls each constitutes 20% of accidents' causes. Other causes represent 60%. The major four health problems are respiratory infections and/or allergy, eye infections, gastrointestinal tract (GIT) infections, and musculoskeletal injuries representing 65.5%, 48.3%, 20.7%, and 17.2%, respectively. It is recommended for landfill workers to wear protective clothes and equipment, have work-related training courses, and be medically supervised.

Study of the environmental health aspects of swimming pools in Alexandria City.

There has been a rapid increase in the number of public as well as private swimming pools in recent years. This is because the general public is now much more health and fitness-oriented, and swimming is thought by many to be the perfect form of exercise. Assessment of the environmental and health aspects of some of Alexandria swimming pools was carried out through the present study. All the recorded temperatures during the present study agreed with the Infectious Diseases Regulations. As regards turbidity, although the annual mean values of most pools had shown compliance with the allowable limit of the decree, there were many violations of the limit values in some individual results recorded during the different months. Most of the residual chlorine results recorded at the different pools during the different months showed that the operators were adding the Cl2 in a haphazard way. The low pH values could be attributed to the addition of slug doses of Cl2 which hydrolyze, producing high concentrations of hydrochloric and hydrochlorous acids. The high incidence of recorded itching and redness of the eyes followed by ear infections was attributed to the exposure to excess chlorine, and to the presence of pathogenic microorganisms. As regards the awareness and practice to pool hygienic instructions, the low percentage of swimmers using head caps during swimming (30.1%) was mainly comprised of females. It could be concluded that the majority of the users followed some of the hygienic instructions, like showering, washing the feet before entering the pool, and wearing bathing suites instead of private clothes. The frequencies of health problems observed among users were related to many factors, like age, marital status, occupation, frequency, and duration of use of the swimming pool.

Biological monitoring of environmental exposure to mutagens among high school students in Jeddah.

Mutagenic and/or carcinogenic substances, which are present in the environment, are numerous. They include electrophilic compounds, polycyclic aromatic compounds such as benzo(a)pyrene which is a polyaromatic hydrocarbon. It is well known to be mutagenic and carcinogenic. Biological monitoring that depends on estimating a substance or one of its metabolites or one of its effective components in biological fluids such as urine and blood was carried out. Thioether concentration in urine indicates absorption of mutagenic and/or carcinogenic substances. Thiocyanates' concentration in urine was used as an indicator of absorption of mutagenic and/or carcinogenic haloacetonitriles. Urinary cotinine was used to estimate the extent of exposure to tobacco smoke, the heaviness of smoking, and whether the subject is smoker or not. Three hundreds and thirty two male students were randomly selected from eight secondary schools in Jeddah city. Their ages were more than 15 years and they were apparently free from illness. Every student filled a questionnaire. Random urine samples were obtained from all students. Thioether, thiocyanate, cotinine, and creatinine were measured in urine samples. There was a direct relation between urinary thioether and each of smoking index, food index, urinary thiocyanate, and cotinine. Urinary thioether shows an inverse relation with BMI. Urinary thiocyanate and cotinine showed direct relation with smoking index and with each of them and the other factor. This indicates interference between these indices and smoking is still one of the most misleading factors in researches that deal with the mutagenic and/or carcinogenic effects in the environment.