Occurrence of arsenicosis in a rural village of Cambodia

Abstract

Ninety-seven subjects belonging to 40 families in a village in Cambodia were examined in a health camp where all the cases with skin disease assembled. These people had evidences of chronic arsenic exposure from reports of testing of water samples and of hair and/or nail studied. Seventy cases were diagnosed to be suffering from arsenicosis (Clinically and laboratory confirmed according to WHO criteria) as all these cases had evidences of pigmentation and/or keratosis characteristic of arsenicosis and history of exposure of arsenic contaminated water and/or elevated level of arsenic in hair and/or in nail. Highest number of cases belonged to age group of 31 to 45 yrs, both the sexes are more or less affected equally. Evidence of both pigmentation and keratosis were found in 60 cases (85.7%) while only pigmentation and only keratosis was found in 6 (8.5%) and 4 (5.7%) cases respectively. It was interesting to find 37.04% of children below the age of 16 years had skin lesions of arsenicosis. The youngest child having definite evidence of keratosis and pigmentation was aged 8 years, though two children aged 4 and 5 yrs had feature of redness and mild thickening of the palms. The minimum and maximum arsenic values detected in the nails were 1.06 and 69.48 mg/Kg respectively and the minimum and maximum arsenic values in hair were 0.92 and 25.6 mg/Kg respectively. No correlation was observed between arsenic concentration in drinking water and arsenic level in nail and hair. This is the first report of clinical and laboratory confirmed cases of arsenicosis in Cambodia.

Keywords:

• Arsenic
• arsenicosis
• Cambodia
• hair
• nail
• children
• pigmentation
• keratosis

Acknowledgments

The authors offer thanks to HE Prof. Dr. Heng Tay Kry of Ministry of Cambodia and Dr. Micheal John O'Leary, WHO Country representative, Cambodia for their help for carrying on this health survey. The authors express their gratitude for the assistance offered by Dr. Chhuoy Meng, Dr. Tek Reth Kamrang, Mr. Keat Cheang Hang,Ms Phan Sophary and Md. Nasir Hassan for their assistance during the field visit. Thanks are also due to the village Chief of Prek Reusey Village for organizing the health camp in the village and arranging home visit for collection of water samples from the tube wells used by the participants. Finally special thanks are for Md. Nasir Hassan, Environmental Engineer, WHO, Cambodia and Dr. Chea Samnang and Dr. Mao Saray of Ministry of Rural Development, Govt. of Cambodia for providing previous water arsenic test data of the wells of Prek Russy Village.