1Assistant Professor, Dept of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, JNMC, KLE university, Belgaum
2Intern, JNMC, KLE university, Belgaum
3Dept of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, BIMS, Belgaum
Agriculture is an age old occupation in the world with majority of the population working in fields. Pesticides are inevitable part of agriculture. Inadvertent and unscientific use of pesticides has caused many health hazards to mankind. It is on rise because of marketing strategies instituted by profitable companies, especially in the developing countries. India is one of the victims of such situation as majority of the adult population is engaged in agriculture which makes them vulnerable for exposure to harmful effects pesticides. This can be worse if little or no protection is used while handling pesticides. Acute poisoning is detectable with prominent signs and symptoms, whereas chronic poisoning which go unnoticed may culminate into irreversible sequels like neurological deficits, skin diseases, ocular problems, respiratory diseases etc…
Added to this there is severe dearth of studies related to the chronic poisoning due to pesticide use and there is no exact data available to the burden of morbidity. Hence a cross sectional study of the farmers in regions of rural Belgaum which is known for high usage of pesticides conducted aiming at detection of pesticide compound in the blood by TLC method and to analyze the safety measures used.
On analysis we found that majority of study group were literates i.e., 66% and an astonishing number i.e, 94% had an exposure to pesticides for 10–20 years. But still half were not aware of the health hazards caused by the inappropriate handling of pesticides. 76% from the group did not use any sort of protection but only 2% of them used proper PPE, 54% tested positive for various pesticides and among them majority i.e 32% tested positive for chlorpyriphos; 12% DDT and 10% quinolophos.
We found a strong correlation with respect to the duration of exposure, pesticide compound present in the blood and the neurological symptoms and also found that various lack of awareness and knowledge, lack of personal protective measures to be used while handling pesticides were contributing to a greater extent.
Pesticide, Chronic exposure, Blood, Thin Layer Chomatography
