Mr Lovelace Sarpong, Deputy Director, Chemical Control and Management Centre (CCMC), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), says there is the need to rigorously implement testing regimes to ascertain levels of lead in paints.
He said lead exposure, especially in children, could cause severe health issues, including development delays, learning difficulties, and neurological damage.
Mr Sarpong said strict testing would help in identifying and mitigating these risks, ensuring compliance with safety regulations and standards, and protecting individuals from the harmful effects of lead poisoning.
The Deputy Director of CCMC was speaking at a stakeholder consultative meeting on lead in paint regulations organised by the EPA, which was held in Accra.
Lead is a toxic heavy metal that has adverse effects on both human health and the environment, such that growing foetuses, pregnant women, and malnourished children are the most vulnerable.
It also affects human fertility by reducing the sperm concentration in adult men. The health effects of lead are usually lifelong and irreversible.
Mr Sarpong said lead was absorbed and stored in bones, blood and tissue which was released as a source of continual internal exposure.
He said the short-term health effects include tiredness, anaemia, irritation, memory loss, headache, constipation, miscarriage, brain damage and death, while the prolonged health effects consist of depression, stupidity, reduced fertility, kidney disease, nausea, among others.
“Because symptoms occur slowly, and resemble other disease symptoms, they are sometimes overlooked,” he added.
He said paints that may contain lead included decorative paints, coatings, glazes, rust resistant paints, industrial paints, and artist paints.
The Deputy Director of CCMC said titanium, oxide and zinc oxide were all alternatives to lead compounds which performed equally well at equivalent quality and price range.
He said lead paint had been identified as a global priority under the Strategic Approach for International Chemical Management leading to the establishment of Global Alliance to eliminate lead paint with the goal to promote establishment of lead paint laws in all countries.
Mr Saeed Foroco, Acting Director, Manufacturing and Industries Department, EPA, said in Ghana there were over 26,000 manufacturing companies in Ghana, with over 243,500 employees.
He said key environmental challenges of public health concern included the generation and management of wastewater that may contain residual active chemical ingredients including heavy metals, odour from the chemicals and other ingredients.
“They also include air emission from the production process, fossil fuel fired broilers, generators and fleet of vehicles bringing in raw materials and carting away products, obsolete chemicals and active chemical ingredients, noise from equipment operations, among others,” he said.
Mr Foroco said there was the need to segregate solid waste, recycle recyclable materials, recover and reuse spent solvents, maintain fuel storage tanks, ensure proper handling and storage of active ingredients and materials, and install appropriate air pollution control systems.
Dr Michael Onwona-Kwakye, Acting Director, CCMC, EPA, speaking on behalf of the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), said according to UNICEF’s Toxic Truth report, about 800 million children worldwide had elevated blood lead levels.
He said in Ghana, a recent UNICEF-supported study showed that about 1 in 2 of the children sampled had elevated blood levels greater than the World Health Organisation’s permissible levels.
Dr Onwona-Kwakye said reducing the levels of lead in paints to the internationally acceptable levels significantly reduced the risk of exposure.
