Zambia drags the heels to the ban on mercury amalgam

Lusaka, Zambia, drums, chats, trumpets and saxophones fill the air as a band that led a procession from Leopard Hills Mall at the Bauleni Elementary School on March 20 to celebrate World Health Day.

The crowds gathered under the shade, surrounded by posters that promote dazzling smiles and sellers presenting dental products. Students, dentists and industry leaders met to lead oral health. The keynote speaker, Richard Nsakanya, Assistant Director of Clinical Services and Diagnostics at the Zambia Ministry of Health, discussed dental diseases and the importance of affordable, affordable health care.

But a pressing issue was obviously absent from his speech – the controversy over the mercury fillings of the mercury.

The mercury amalgam, a common material used to fill the cavities, consists of mercury liquid mixed with silver, tin and copper. While strong and long lasting, these silver fillings emit low levels of mercury vapor, which, when inhaled, can be absorbed by the lungs.

US states FDA The mercury exposure from amalgam is generally safe, but the development of neurological systems in embryos and young children may be more sensitive to its toxic effects. Pregnant women are called upon to avoid being filled due to the danger to their fetus. Amalgam fillings are not recommended for young children, which can inhale low levels of mercury vapor that can be absorbed by the lungs. In addition to health concerns, dental mercury poses significant environmental dangers. It is removed in ecosystems through dental clinics and human waste emissions, as well as burns and burials that contaminate air, water and soil.

Just 0.6 grams of mercury – the average amount used in a filling– can infect 100,000 liters of water, about the size of a pool, and make it insecure drink, according to The WHERE. A 2017 Report estimates that Amalgam Mercury fills contributed 1,297kg of mercury in Zambia’s environment.

“It infects our water sources, infects the crops we grow up and can even infect aquatic animals,” says Gabriel Mpundu, MD, dentist and president of the Zambia Dental Union. A study of 2022 Two samples of fish were found from the lakes and rivers of Zambia, contained up to 1.7 times the legal maximum level for mercury.

The mercury amalgam is only the sixth largest source of mercury pollution in the Zambia environment-which is followed by more well-known culprits such as copper and gold mining, battery mood and informal waste burning. But with modern developments in dental fillings, it has become an unnecessary contribution.

Some nations have already taken decisive steps to ban the Amalgam of mercury. But in Zambia, progress has stopped despite the dangers.

In 2013, the 140 nations – Zambia between them – set the Minamata Convention for Hermes, who pledged to control and reduce the use of mercury in all industries, including the encouragement of a phase of dental amalgam. While the contract does not impose the same prohibition, dozens of countries have passed since then their own national laws that completely prohibit the use of amalgam without exception, hugging environmentally friendly alternatives such as complex resins and cement by some studies that indicate some studies that indicate some studies are equally durableand maybe cheaper when factor the environmental cost.

Not everyone agrees. After the European Union banned dental amalgam in January, The British Dental Union He warned that “there are no alternative rehabilitation materials that compete with amalgam at speed or longevity.”

But unlike the United Kingdom, Zambia is particularly vulnerable due to the harmful effects of mercury on its limited resources.

“There is no hospital equipped with the appropriate dental amalgam mood systems – either the fills we use or the ones we export,” Mpundu explains. “For me, this is an environmental danger. Because we throw it with other waste.”

The Minamata Convention requires for safe management of mercury waste and encourages dental practices to use amalgam separators to prevent mercury releases in the environment. Without them, Zambia remains at risk. However, the official government line is that the issue has been addressed.

In 2021, the Zambia government stated that Mercury amalgam was no longer in usestating that dentists had turned into alternatives and that they were no longer taught in dental schools. However, the lack of an official ban on the government leaves room for ambiguity.

MPUNDU estimates that 10% of dentists still offer mercury fillings, although the actual number may be higher. GHN visited three randomly selected dentists in Lusaka and two were still providing mercury fillings. None of the practices agreed to comment. Other dentists refused to discuss whether they used no mercury amalgam.

According to the Minamata Convention, countries had to submit reports by 2023, describing their efforts to protect women and children from exposure to mercury.

Some met the deadline, but Zambia, despite the ratification of the contract in 2016, has not yet done so.

Christopher Kapeshi, MD, Zambia’s National Health Coordinator at the Ministry of Health, says the government aims to ban mercury amalgam by 2030.

Florian Schulze, administrative vice -president of the World Alliance for Dentistry and Head of the European Network for Environmental Medicine, which monitors the progress of nations under the Minamata Convention, says delays are concerned.

In addition to the loss of the 2023 reporting deadline for efforts to protect children along with pregnant and lactating women, he notes, another report on the progress of the abolition of mercury is due to the end of this year.

Kapeshi says Zambia wants to eliminate the use of mercury amalgam in lactating mothers, children under 15 years of age and childhood women, but did not face the United Nations deadline. “We are still on the way; we do not think we are lagging behind,” he says.

Titus Haakonde, PhD, president of the Zambia Environmental Health Institute, calls for stronger action and legislation.

“Maybe our Members have not received sufficient information,” he says. “We are still urging our government and the health authorities to abolish this, because the health effects associated with any material containing mercury are so severe that they not only affect our generation but future generations.”

“We want to see legislation, such as parliament acts that will prohibit the use of mercury,” he adds.

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Mpundu agrees that better communication with policymakers is vital: “We must persuade the government with an investigation into the disadvantages of Amalgama,” he says, adding that he was currently leading a research program on the subject and looking for funding. “Just supporting without research data is not enough.”

While progress was sluggish in Zambia, some African nations have already successfully banned the mercury amalgam – showing that political will can change.

In 2022, Tanzania ordered all oral health care providers to stop using it – not only for pregnant women and children, but for the general population. Uganda and Gabon have also established bans.

Baraka Nzobo, an assistant director of oral health services to the Tanzani Ministry of Health, says that while some Tanzania dentists initially resisted change, continuing dialogue and education helped to normalize the transitional addition that his own amalgam and amalgam

Schulze greets Tanzania’s success as “wonderful story”, proving that it is possible to change.

“It shows how fast you can do it and how available the alternatives are,” he says, showing a desire in African nations with emerging dental industries in Amazama “Leapfrog” technology and go straight to alternatives.

He notes that African countries are promoting efforts to amend the Minamata Convention, with the aim of setting the 2030 deadline for the gradual abolition of Amalgam of mercury – as a rule, there is no such date.

However, Zambia’s delayed response is in strong contradiction with the preventive approach of Tanzania and other nations, lacking critical deadlines and lack of clear enforcement. Inaction could have bad consequences, endanger Zambia’s health and protecting the environment from the long -term risks of mercury.

“We have the right to live in a clean and safe environment,” says Haakonde.

Ed. Note: The idea for this story came from Michael Musenga, an environmental health professional for the Environmental Health Environmental Institute in Livingstone, Zambia. Musenga won a remarkable report for his entry, “making Zambia a country without a dentist” Independent World Health Stories of the ContestIt is co -financed by Global Health Now and the Universities Consortium for global health.

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