In the summer of 2004, neighbours in the village of Jiaole in Southwest China's Guizhou Province noticed a couple of changes to Shao Xianjun's house -- a chimney protruding from the roof and corns and peppers hung outside in the yard.
For generations, the only stove local people knew was a hole dug in the earth floor of their homes. Encased with bricks it was used for both cooking and drying food. But the cheap briquettes used in the chimney-less ovens filled the house with arsenic-laced smoke.
For 40 years Shao has been using such a stove. A visiting provincial medical team warned it was damaging to health. But at first he dismissed the advice. "I had been amid smoke since my birth and my parents fed me with food dried on the stove," said Shao.
"I got used to it and I believed nothing could be changed. But later I came to see that the air in the room could be much fresher and cleaner when the smoke is discharged through the chimney, and the food, when hung out to dry, tastes better without the smell of smoke."
The Shao family's new stove was installed with the support of local medical staff and funding from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). And they did not have to a pay a penny for the 360 yuan (US$43.4) it cost.
Shao, 63, was also taught how to dry food outdoors.
But for the old man the clean stove has come a lifetime too late. The briquette fumes he has inhaled since childhood are full of poison from the arsenic-rich coal produced in part of the province.
And years of exposure has wrecked his health. In 1998 the obvious outward signs of arsenic poisoning manifested themselves and his skin began to fester and crack. Now when he takes his clothes off before going to sleep, they stick painfully to his suppurating skin.
He cannot lie on his back because it is covered with running sores. Every movement is a torture, with even his toes affected. The telltale signs of cracking have now begun to appear on his wife's hands and her vision has become blurred.
The Shaos are not the only ones stricken by arsenic poisoning in their mountainous community. Up to 2001, a total of 2,036 of the 9,202 people in 1,907 households in Jiaole Village had been similarly affected, nearly a quarter of the total population.
China is one of 20 countries seriously hit by arsenic poisoning. Others include Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Chile and Argentina. Of the 50 million stricken people worldwide, China accounts for 2.67 million, scattered across 12 provinces and autonomous regions, including Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Guizhou, Jilin, Qinghai, Ningxia and Liaoning, a National Endemic Disease Investigation in 2002 revealed.
In other areas arsenic poisoning is mainly caused by contaminated water.
But "Guizhou Province is unique in that the arch culprit is the arsenic-rich coal used for heating and cooking, with an affected population of 100,000," said Li Dasheng, head of the Guizhou Centre for Endemic Disease Control & Research.
"Chronic arsenic poisoning may harden the skin on the hands and feet and lead to discoloration of body skin. It can also damage the nerves in the brain and nerve tissues around them, impairing the senses of hearing, smell and sight.
"Long-term consumption of arsenic through water or air can lead to skin cancer and ultimately death," he added.
Owing to geological factors, the content of arsenic in the coal consumed by Jiaole villagers is 1,749.69 mg/kg on average, against the standard content of arsenic at or below 50 mg/kg. In some other areas in Guizhou the content is as high as 4,917.8 mg/kg, 98 times the standard.
Most villagers use chimney-less stoves which are suited to the cheap arsenic rich briquettes, as few can afford the cost of standard coal.
"When I used the old stove, only eight briquettes were needed for our daily consumption at a cost of 1.2 yuan (15 US cents). But if I use the new stove to burn standard coal at 480 yuan (US$57.8) per ton, the daily cost is 7.5 yuan," Shao calculated.
In a community where the annual per capita income averages between 400 yuan (US$48) and 1,000 yuan (US$120.4), the difference is enormous.
But, said Li, arsenic poisoning is "not only an illness caused by poverty, but also by unhealthy habits."
He was referring to the tradition of hanging staple food such as corn and hot peppers over stoves to dry out.
"Arsenic can get into the body not only through the respiratory system but also the digestive system.
"Food exposed to an arsenic-rich environment also becomes poisonous," said Li.
Addressing the arsenic problem in Guizhou is part of the provincial programme to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, said An Dong, director of the province's disease prevention centre.
Since 2002, local health authorities have replaced stoves in 2,000 rural households -- Shao was one of the beneficiaries -- free of charge.
But the problem is that many villagers do not know how to use the chimney and the rate of correct utilization is only 20 to 30 per cent.
"Many villagers won't allow the chimney to go out of the roof, but instead take it only to the second floor where they store food, so the food is still contaminated," said An.
"Some even dismantle the chimney, thinking it useless and problematic because, they say, when the chimney goes out of the ceiling, the roof will leak when it rains."
These concerns are not wholly unfounded as Guizhou is known for its wet weather. "It's never fine for over three days," the old saying goes.
"It is necessary, therefore, to make the solution practical so that the villagers can adapt it to their particular circumstances. You cannot just go into a village and tell them about the dangers of arsenic poisoning."
To address the problem of leaking roofs, health workers, in collaboration with local enterprises have designed a new stove fitted with a plank to block the rain. They are also working on a stove which can burn both quality coal and the much less expensive briquettes.
The local government and the UNICEF have also worked out a policy to provide poor families, who account for 30 per cent of the total affected population, with the new stove free of charge, and charge another 30 per cent mid-income families half the cost.
The remaining 40 per cent slightly better off families will have to buy their own. The Shaos and 26 other families in Jiaole village were among the beneficiaries of this scheme in 2004.
Aside from these practical measures, said Yang Zhenbo, UNICEF-China's national hygiene project officer, it is imperative to raise people's awareness about the dangers of arsenic pollution and thereby reduce it.
In conjunction with the provincial health authorities of Guizhou, the UNICEF launched a health education programme in 2003 in two villages Jiaole in Xingren County and Haizi Village in Anlong County stricken by arsenic poisoning.
The programme began with training for 80 local health workers and village leaders about the causes, damage and preventative measures of arsenic poisoning. This was followed by the introduction of lessons on the subject into the curriculum of local primary and high schools.
By educating villagers, most of whom have limited formal education, about the dangers and alternatives, they can begin to change their old and damaging practices.
The measures have proved effective, but more work needs to be done, said He Chongyuan, deputy director of the Health Bureau of Guizhou Province.
"In the past 20 years, we have installed new stoves in 67,000 households, but we still need to change stoves in another 3 million to prevent those families from being poisoned."
Stoves in 120,000 households will be replaced in 2005 with 24 million yuan (US$2.9 million) allocated by the central government and 12 million yuan from the provincial government.
A timetable for nationwide arsenic mitigation has also been set by the central government. By 2006, it will provide 500,000 people affected by arsenic poisoning with safe drinking water and safe stoves.
And by 2010, all affected local populations will have been provided with safe alternatives, said Xiao Donglou, deputy director of the Department of Disease Control of the Ministry of Health.
The safe stove has come too late to save Shao Xianjun's life.
He is in the latter stages of arsenic poisoning and cannot expect to live more than another six months. But at least he knows his children will be spared a similar fate, thanks to the new stove.
(China Daily January 26, 2005)
|
