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Hazards from household pesticide used by the urban poor
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Your local, friendly household pesticides salesman attracts the customers in the local market. Photo RAAA, Peru |
Peru’s Action Network on Agrochemicals and Alternatives (RAAA) carried out an assessment of household pesticide use in low-income communities in three Peruvian cities in 2000, using data from hospitals and health centres, questionnaires in schools and individual households and interviews with pesticide retailers and market vendors. Of the 1010 poisoning cases recorded in five hospitals in 1999, 60% were female and the age group most frequently affected were the under-fives, followed by children and young people aged 6-20 years.
The interviews revealed that 37% of the respondents from Lima use pesticides to control household pests, mainly flies, fleas, cockroaches, ants, moths, mosquitoes, lice and rodents. More than 20% of respondents in the capital said they applied pesticides between one to seven times per week and 21% admitted they did not use any form of protection. Most of the schools interviewed had applied pesticides at some time and the majority said that their staff wore gloves during application.
The most commonly used pesticide product in Lima was the carbamate Baygon (propoxur) in spray form, although the highest number of poisoning cases treated in the hospitals were caused by organophosphates. Households obtain their pesticides from hardware shops, local market stalls and sometimes from travelling vendors.
The study team purchased 37 different pesticide products sold for household use from informal outlets. Only five were registered for use by the Ministry of Health and 10 by the Ministry of Agriculture. Just six products displayed a colour code for toxicity level on their label and few gave any details of risk, precautions for use, batch number or information on what to do in the case of accidental poisoning.
RAAA concluded that the urban public have no idea of the risks they face when using pesticides in the home. Unrestricted commercialization, especially in the informal sector, means that household pesticides are, in effect, being sold without any form of control on their formulation, packaging, distribution and use.
Enlace, (Bulletin of PAN Latin America), No. 49, pp 5-7.