Why is sick 'numb, drunk'?

When I went to survey at Lac Son (Hoa Binh), Professor Nguyen Khac Hai ( pictured ) - Director of the Institute of Labor and Environmental Hygiene - said:

Associate Prof. Dr. Nguyen Khac Hai (Photo: TTO)

- On October 16, we arrived at a place where 52 people got sick in Lac Son district (Hoa Binh) taking samples of drinking water, fish pond water, sediment samples in the lake, blood and urine samples of patients . Through a thorough examination of nine people who had the disease, we found the same pattern of illness in people with similar diseases in Kim Boi (Hoa Binh) whose cause was concluded.

* So, what is the cause of the disease, sir?

- In Kim Boi, the cause has been identified as chronic mercury poisoning because in the hair, urine of patients, in food (fish, snails .) has very high levels of mercury. At Lac Son, we recently visited and studied clinical manifestations, not yet had clinical test results but thought that the clinical manifestations were very similar, all were dizzy, tired and drooping, manifested as drunken people, someone fainted and even died very quickly.

People around the region are very worried because there are cases where the whole family is sick, but we have confirmed that this is an uncommon disease. The Ministry of Health's official treatment plan is to use high-dose vitamin B1, with patients who are too tired to combine the infusion. However, regarding illnesses in the community around the mining area, we proposed to provide people with antitoxin. In Kim Boi, I received an antidote next to vitamin B1 and the results did not appear to return to 'numbness, drunkenness'.

* Sir, what kind of mine does a pangolin and drunkenness appear in the mining area? In addition to this disease, what is the risk for mine people?

- ' Pangolin, drunk drunk ' often occurs in areas with gold digging grounds because gold miners use mercury to extract gold. For nearly three years from 2002-2004 we have studied in the communities of the northern mining areas, the results show that the area has lead mines, manganese mines, the community there is contaminated or lead poisoned, manganese.

In areas with coal mines, coal is not toxic, but the concentration of dust is too high, making the rate of people with bronchitis higher than normal. Especially in areas with lead mines, we tested IQ in more than 100 children and found that this index was lower than in other regions, because lead affects intelligence index. The cause of this situation is very much, but there are several main reasons such as not good mining area management, waste transport, indiscriminate materials and severe penalties.

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