By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organisation urgedSenegal on Tuesday to decontaminate an area of Dakar wherenearly 1,000 residents remain exposed to high concentrations ofbrain-damaging lead after 18 children died.
International health and environmental experts carried outan investigation last week in the NGagne Diaw quarter ofThiaroye sur Mer, an area used for recycling lead batteries.
"Many children are showing evidence of neurological damage.Environmental investigations have found very highconcentrations of lead both outside and inside people's homes,"the WHO said in a statement.
Some 950 people in the poor area are "continuously exposedthrough ingestion and inhalation of lead-contaminated dust," itsaid. "Thorough decontamination of the affected area of NGagneDiaw, including the insides of homes, is a high priority."
At least 31 children require treatment for lead poisoning,but only a proportion of the population has been examined, saidJoanna Tempowski, a scientist in the WHO's environmental healthemergencies division.
"The focus is on small children because they are veryvulnerable to lead poisoning because neurotoxic substances canaffect child development even at quite low levels, and theseare very high levels," she told Reuters.
Senegal needs urgent technical and financial assistancefrom the international community for the clean-up, the WHOsaid.
"The recycling has stopped but the lead is in theenvironment and won't disperse. It needs to be removed. It isan enormous job," said Tempowski, who stressed that some of thebatteries may also contain other contaminants such as arsenic.
Senegal's health ministry reported to the WHO in March thata total of 18 children died between last October and February,WHO spokeswoman Sari Setiogi said.
Many community members in NGagne Diaw were directly engagedin battery recycling as a source of income.
Siblings and mothers of the dead children had "extremelyhigh blood level concentrations" -- in many cases more than 10times the level which may impair neurological development,according to the Geneva-based United Nations agency.
Adults and children not directly involved in lead recyclingalso showed dangerously high levels.
Senegalese children with high lead exposure may needchelation therapy, which removes heavy metals from the body,the statement said. But the WHO warned the treatment would be"ineffective and may exacerbate toxicity" in children who arestill exposed to lead.
The agency has provided chelating agents and its clinicaltoxicologist has started training local medical staff, it said.
(Editing by Laura MacInnis and Giles Elgood)
