Mercury exposure in a low-income community in South Africa

Oosthuizen, M.A.; John, J; Somerset, Vernon

doi:10.7196/samj.3863

Cited by 21 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…This detailed article summarized the results from 26 studies, showing that the exposure to inorganic Hg vapor is high, and that toxic effects have to be considered. Some relevant papers in different countries with ASGM showed that Hg levels in any analyzed biomarker were higher compared to control groups or reference values, and in some studies clinical symptoms or negative results for subclinical parameters were identified [7,8,13,14,26,28,29,31,32,[53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60]. These results are very similar to our results.…”

Section: Literaturesupporting

confidence: 82%

Signs and symptoms of mercury-exposed gold miners

Blüml

Bernaudat

Siebert

et al. 2017

Int J Occup Med Environ Health

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Section: Literaturesupporting

confidence: 82%

Signs and symptoms of mercury-exposed gold miners

Blüml

Bernaudat

Siebert

et al. 2017

Int J Occup Med Environ Health

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“…23 In one study on Hg exposure in a gold mining community, 50% of urine samples exceeded the guideline among individuals that were not occupationally exposed. 24 Hazards from minerals and contaminants in the minerals According to the Mining Intelligence Database, 25 South Africa is currently the world's largest producer of chromite, platinum group metals (PGMs), manganese (Mn), vanadium and vermiculite, and is the second largest producer of ilmenite, palladium, rutile and zirconium. There is also smaller scale mining and/or processing of other metals, such as copper, zinc, uranium, aluminium, nickel, lead, cobalt and iron, as well as industrial minerals such as andalusite, fluorspar, phosphate, clay, limestone, gypsum and gravel.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hazards identified and the need for health risk assessment in the South African mining industry

et al. 2015

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Although mining plays a prominent role in the economy of South Africa, it is associated with many chemical hazards. Exposure to dust from mining can lead to many pathological effects depending on mineralogical composition, size, shape and levels and duration of exposure. Mining and processing of minerals also result in occupational exposure to toxic substances such as platinum, chromium, vanadium, manganese, mercury, cyanide and diesel particulate. South Africa has set occupational exposure limits (OELs) for some hazards, but mine workers are still at a risk. Since the hazard posed by a mineral depends on its physiochemical properties, it is recommended that South Africa should not simply adopt OELs from other countries but rather set her own standards based on local toxicity studies. The limits should take into account the issue of mixtures to which workers could be exposed as well as the health status of the workers. The mining industry is also a source of contamination of the environment, due inter alia to the large areas of tailings dams and dumps left behind. Therefore, there is need to develop guidelines for safe land-uses of contaminated lands after mine closure.

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“…Also, most studies are based on very small samples (14 of 24 studies had fewer than 50 participants). 35,[44][45][46]48,[51][52][53][54][55][56][57] To improve the reliability of the prevalence estimates, the study-specific prevalence estimates were pooled to one estimate due to weighting by the sample size. This pragmatic approach was used because of the missing representativeness, the small sample sizes, and the lack of comprehensive data.…”

Section: R E S U L T Smentioning

confidence: 99%