Occupational Exposure to Pesticides: Blood Cholinesterase Activity in a Farming Community in Ghana

Abstract

A survey was undertaken to establish the extent of pesticide exposure in a farming community. Cholinesterase (ChE) activity in whole blood was used as a marker for assessing exposure to pesticides. Complete data were gathered for 63 farmers at Akumadan (exposed) and 58 control subjects at Tono, both prominent vegetable-farming communities in Ghana, by means of a questionnaire and blood cholinesterase analyses (acetylcholine assay). Although whole-blood ChE was significantly lower in the exposed than the control participants, it was not significantly correlated with either confounders of age, sex, body weight, and height or high-risks practices. The high-risks practices revealed during the survey included lack of use of personal protective clothing, short reentry intervals, and wrong direction of spraying of pesticides by hand or knapsack sprayer. About 97% of exposed participants had experienced symptoms attributable to pesticide exposure. The frequent symptoms were reported as weakness and headache. There is the need to review safety precautions in the use and application of pesticides in Ghana.

Cholinesterase Depression and Its Association with Pesticide Exposure across the Agricultural Season among Latino Farmworkers in North Carolina

“…Most other studies of pesticide exposure have used a study design with nonexposed controls (e.g., Cataño et al 2008; Ntow et al 2009; Rendón von Osten et al 2004) or a pre–post design (Gamlin et al 2007; Thetkathuek et al 2005) to identify cholinesterase depression. Such designs are not always practical with migrant workers in the eastern United States.…”

Consumer perceptions of fruit and vegetable quality: certification and other options for safeguarding public health in West Africa

“…Risks from pesticide use in vegetable production for farmers and consumers have been confirmed by Ntow et al (2009) and Amoah et al (2006). In contrast to the use of polluted water, farmers were generally aware that pesticides are hazardous ) although there were slight differences in farmers' and experts' perception of the relative hazard of using the WHO ranking as reference.…”

Evaluation of Occupational and Vegetable Dietary Exposures to Current-Use Agricultural Pesticides in Ghana

“…Akumadan is known to be a highly contaminated site with pesticides, including anticholinesterase substances [23]. Use of pesticides such as carbofuran (a carbamate pesticide under the trade name Furadan 3G) and chlorpyrifos (an organophosphate pesticide under the trade name Durban 4E) in the study area has been reported [16,31]. Carbofuran and chlorpyrifos are anti-ChE pesticides [48,49] and we therefore speculate that carbofuran and chlorpyrifos are among the pesticides responsible for blood ChE inhibition at Akumadan.…”

“…For the comparison of symptoms according to exposure, we used the odds ratio for the prevalence as a measure of association. A level of probability below 0.05 was considered statistically significant for all analysis [31].…”