Many paints sold in Ghana for household use have been identified to contain toxic metal lead that causes lead poisoning and fatalities, especially among children.
A study by the United Nation Environmental Protection indicated that a total of 18 cans of new enamel decorative paints, which were purchased from retail shops in Accra, contain as high as 90ppm.
To raise awareness on the issue of lead poisoning, Ecological Restorations, an NGO, in collaboration with the Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme, (GEF/SGP) and the United Nations Development Programme, has joined the rest of the world to mark this year’s international Lead Poisoning Prevention Week.
“It is essential for our society to respond to this global challenge and make the phase out of lead paint a top public priority. We must act with urgency as the health of our children can be permanently and irreversibly damaged even at very low exposures to lead,” said Emmanuel Odjam-Akumatey, Executive Director, Ecological Restorations.
He said lead is considered by the World Health Organization as one of the 10 chemicals of major public health concern, and it includes 48 chemicals that could potentially pose unreasonable risks of public health, workplace and environment.
He said government needs to adopt holistic measures in collaborating with the paint industry and civil society for a regulation framework that will eventually phase out lead paint in tune with the global concerted effort to get rid of such paints.
Some of the exposures, he said, are lead added to petrol and lead from an active industry such as mining, lead from drinking water systems and lead in electronic waste.
Mr. George Ortsin, the National Co-ordinator of GEF Small Grant Programme of UNDP, called for concerted efforts by Ghana to meet the 2020 deadline by WHO to eliminate lead paint.
He said although paints containing high lead have been banned in developing countries like the United States of America, developing countries like Ghana still use them.
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