JIST

Abstract

India is the second most populous country in the world, with a majority of the adult population engaged in agriculture. Being the largest producer of pesticides in Asia, the availability and demand of these pesticides makes it a vulnerable country for its people to be exposed to the harmful effects of pesticides, directly or indirectly, especially with little or no protection used. Other aggravating factors include illiteracy, lack of awareness and improper handling of pesticides.

There is a dearth of studies relating to chronic poisoning from pesticide use and there are no exact data available with regard to the burden of morbidity. Hence a crosssectional study of the farmers in some regions of rural Belgaum of Karnataka state, known for high usage of pesticides, was conducted aiming at detection of pesticide traces in the blood by Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC), and to assess the safety measures used.

The majority of the study group subjects were literate, i.e., 66%, and 94% had some exposure to pesticides for 10–20 years. Yet 50% were not aware of the health hazards caused by inappropriate handling of pesticides, 76% did not use any sort of protection, only 2% used proper personal protection equipment (PPE), and 54% tested positive for various pesticides in their blood, of which 32% tested positive for chlorpyriphos, 12% for DDT, and 10% for quinalphos.

There was strong correlation between the duration of exposure and pesticide traces present in the blood. The study also revealed that various factors, including lack of personal protective measures, and lack of awareness contributed to the morbidity from pesticide exposure to a great extent.