Lead levels of new solvent-based household paints in Zimbabwe and Botswana: A preliminary study

African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Lead levels of new solvent-based household paints in Zimbabwe and Botswana: A preliminary study
 
Creator Kambarami, Rose A. Coulter, Lucia L. Chikara Mudawarima, Louisa Kandawasvika, Gwen Rafferty, Jack Donaldson, Clare Stewart, Benjamin
 
Subject Public Health lead exposure; lead paint; lead poisoning; lead paint elimination; environmental health; toxic metals.
Description Background: Lead paint remains a major potential source of lead poisoning globally, but there has been no documentation on lead content in solvent paints available on the markets in Zimbabwe and Botswana.Aim: To determine the lead content of solvent-based paints available on the market in Zimbabwe and Botswana and identify a need for a larger study to inform policy.Methods: This pilot study was conducted in Harare, Zimbabwe, and Gaborone, Botswana. Popular brands of solvent-based household paints were bought from hardware shops in Harare (10 samples) and Gaborone (19 samples). Samples were analysed for lead content using inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry.Results: Seventy percent of samples from Zimbabwe were found to contain lead above 90 parts per million (ppm), the recommended regulatory limit, with ranges from less than 60 ppm to 12 000 ppm. Twenty percent of Zimbabwean samples had lead levels above 10 000 ppm. No samples from Botswana had lead concentration above the detection limit, with all levels below 100 ppm.Lesson Learnt: Data strongly suggest very high lead content in popular brands of solvent paints in Zimbabwe, indicating a need for a larger, well-designed study for policy direction.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interest exists. Author contributions: All authors contributed equally to this work. Funding: Laboratory analysis of paint samples was funded by [removed for anonymity in review process]
Date 2022-08-30
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Survey
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/phcfm.v14i1.3486
 
Source African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine; Vol 14, No 1 (2022); 4 pages 2071-2936 2071-2928
 
Language eng
 
Relation
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https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/3486/5569 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/3486/5570 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/3486/5571 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/3486/5572
 
Coverage Southern Africa 2021 Paint
Rights Copyright (c) 2022 Rose A. Kambarami, Lucia L. Coulter, Louisa Chikara Mudawarima, Gwen Kandawasvika, Jack Rafferty, Clare Donaldson, Benjamin Stewart https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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