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The role of health-service units in
monitoring and prevention of
pesticide intoxication
Shou-Zheng Xue,1 Song-Ling Zhong,2 Shi-Xin Yang,2 Jin-Ling Li,3
and Cheng-Nong Xie4
1
Department of Occupational Health, School of Public Health, Shanghai
Medical University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China; 2Section of Labour
Hygiene, Municipal Centre of Health and Anti-Epidemics, Shanghai, People's
Republic of China; 3County Health and Anti-Epidemic Station, Song-Jiang,
Shanghai, People's Republic of China; 4Section of Labour Hygiene, Provincial
Centre of Health and Anti-Epidemics, Nan-Jing, People's Republic of China
The occurrence of acute pesticide poisoning in a province and rural area
around Shanghai is presented and analyzed. The incidence of occupational
cases tripled at the beginning of the rural economic reformation, but
declined by half in 5 years. The death rate from nonoccupational poisonings
was reduced to one-third in the 1980s. Preventive measures responsible
for this reduction, especially the important role of peripheral
health-service units and an active primary health-care network, are
described.
Between I and 2.9 million cases of acute pesticide poisoning occur annually
in developing countries, resulting in 20 to 220 thousand deaths (Jeyaratnam
1985). Addressing this problem is one of the highest priorities in occupational
health and medicine, but it is often neglected in developing countries
(Christiani et al. 1990). Action is urgently required to reduce the hazards posed
by pesticide use (Shih 1983, 1985; Xue 1987).
In China, the prevalence of pesticide poisoning increased after the reformation
of rural production and economic systems, which began in the 1980s. With the
dissociation of the rural collective production system, highly toxic pesticides
began to be handled by unqualified people and to be more widely used. Safety
regulations that had previously been effective could no longer be enforced. As
an inevitable result of the loosening of restrictions for handling such high-risk
chemicals, the number of acute poisoning cases increased dramatically.
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