Pesticide monitoring of vulnerable populations in Uganda and South Africa

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BACKGROUND AND AIM: Weak governance of pesticides and poor knowledge, attitude and agricultural practices result in farmers and their families being exposed to multiple pesticides in Africa. What are the important routes of exposure and are there interconnections between family members? How can we quantify exposure to multiple pesticides in these most vulnerable populations? METHODS: First, we provide results from our systematic literature review on pesticide environmental contamination, human exposure and health issues on the African continent. Second, we show pesticide exposure situations from two fundamentally different farming systems using longitudinal data from our PESTROP cohort study in Uganda with smallholder farmers and from our CapSA cohort study investigating children in areas with large-scale agriculture production in South Africa. Finally, pesticide exposure assessment tools to monitor multiple pesticides will be highlighted (e.g., passive air sampling, questionnaire-based exposure algorithms, urinary biomarkers and wristbands). RESULTS:Only from few countries in Africa research studies are available on pesticide exposure. Also, most research studies focus on organochlorine pesticides, while research on currently used pesticide classes is lacking or only crude exposure assessments are done (e.g., sprayers vs non-sprayers). This is problematic as in our two cohorts, we showed that (high) exposure to multiple currently used pesticides over time is the reality for farmers and their children (also to pesticides that are already banned in the EU). CONCLUSIONS:We developed low-cost and context-specific assessments to monitor exposure to multiple pesticides in remote areas in Africa. Such tools could be used in intervention studies to monitor their efficiency to reduce exposure and resulting health risks from multiple currently used pesticides. This is done, for example, within our new initiative “African Pesticide Intervention Study (APSENT)” where we use these assessment tools, bring stakeholders together and thereby reduce pesticide exposure and associated risks. KEYWORDS: Africa, Pesticide, Exposure, urine, wristband, air