By Sulayman Waan
The executive director for Young Volunteers for the Environment (YVE), Joe Bongay has called on government to adopt a law that would ban the manufacture, importation, distribution, and sale of lead paint that is highly concentrated.
Mr Bongay was speaking at press conference marking celebrating of international lead poisoning prevention week from 20-24 October. The theme is “Ban lead paint” held at his office on Monday.
“To promote and save the health of Gambian children and other venerable groups such as women and workers. We as civil society organization continue to call on the Government of The Gambia to adopt a law that would ban the manufacture, importation, distribution, and sale of lead paint,” he reiterated.
Lead paint or lead-based paint is paint containing lead. Lead is added to paint to accelerate drying, increase the durability of the paint, maintain a fresh appearance, and resist moisture that causes corrosion. It is one of the main health and environmental hazards associated with paint.
In some countries, lead continues to be added to paint intended for domestic use, whereas countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom have regulations prohibiting this, although lead paint may still be found in older properties painted prior to the introduction of such regulations.
The environmental activist noted that lead paint will cause life-long health effects on all particularly the children such as lower intelligent, it cause low learning ability, low concentration.
“Lead paint also causes miss-carry to pregnant women. It causes hypertension and throat; it also makes children underperform. This causes lots of risk behavior issues which are very worried considering the population of The Gambia.
“Lead paint is a major source of childhood lead exposure which can cause permanent and irreversible brain damage in children. Globally, Lead exposure accounted for 5, 40,000 deaths and 13.9 million lost to disability and death due to long-term effects on health, with the highest-burden in developing regions. 857 million Children worldwide are at the risk of lead exposure,” he said.
Speaking further, he said some countries have banned lead paint while others are on the verge to outlaw it in order to maintain the health of their people. Therefore, he opined that there is a need for The Gambia Government to establish laws to ban such paint in order to protect the population from health consequences.
He justifying that children living in low- and middle-income countries like The Gambia, where there are few or no Governmental controls on the lead are disproportionately affected. Quoting from the World Health Organization (WHO), he said: “lead paint is one amongst ten (10) major toxic chemical of public health concern.”
Bongay urged lead paint manufacturers, sellers and distributers to show their commitment to children’s health and voluntarily end the sale and production of this horrible chemical in the country while appealing consumers to water paints to save themselves as well as their families.
