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Exposure to toxic waste containing high concentrations of hydrogen sulphide illegally dumped in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

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Abstract

Introduction

On August 2006, a cargo ship illegally dumped 500 t of toxic waste containing high concentrations of hydrogen sulphide in numerous sites across Abidjan. Thousands of people became ill. Seventeen deaths were associated with toxic waste exposure.

Materials and methods

This study reports on environmental and health problems associated with the incident. A cross-sectional transect study was conducted in five waste dumping site areas.

Results

Of the households, 62.1% (n = 502) were exposed to the effects of the pollutants and 51.1% of the interviewed people (n = 2,368) in these households showed signs of poisoning. Most important symptoms were cough (37.1%), asthenia (33.1%), pruritus (29.9%) and nausea (29.1%).

Discussion

The health effects showed different frequencies in the five waste impact sites. Among the poisoned persons, 21.1% (n = 532) presented symptoms on the survey day (i.e., 4 months after incident). Transect sampling allowed to determine a radius of vulnerability to exposure of up to 3 km from the point of toxic waste disposal.

Conclusion

The area of higher vulnerability is influenced by various environmental factors, such as size and severity of pollution site, duration of toxic waste pollution on the impact site and locally climatic conditions. The surveillance of effects on environment and human health is warranted to monitor the development.

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Acknowledgement

We are grateful for the support of the World Health Organization (WHO) country office in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, the Côte d’Ivoire Government Committee of Toxic Waste and the Ministry of Health in Côte d’Ivoire. Furthermore, we would like to thank the Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques in Côte d’Ivoire (CSRS) and the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) and the programme NCCR North–South for the financial and technical support, and SODEXAM for providing meteorological data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques, (CSRS), Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

    Kouassi Dongo, Blaise Atioumonou Koné & Guéladio Cissé

  2. Laboratoire des Sciences et Technique de l’Eau et de l’Environnement (LSTEE), Université de Cocody, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

    Kouassi Dongo

  3. Institut National d’Hygiène Publique, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

    Issiaka Tiembré & Blaise Atioumonou Koné

  4. Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Dübendorf, Switzerland

    Christian Zurbrügg

  5. Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Swiss Tropical and Public Health institute, Basel, Switzerland

    Peter Odermatt, Marcel Tanner, Jakob Zinsstag & Guéladio Cissé

  6. University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

    Peter Odermatt, Marcel Tanner, Jakob Zinsstag & Guéladio Cissé

  7. LSTEE, UFR STRM, Université de Cocody, 22 B.P., 801, Abidjan 22, Côte d’Ivoire

    Kouassi Dongo

Authors
  1. Kouassi Dongo
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  2. Issiaka Tiembré
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  3. Blaise Atioumonou Koné
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  4. Christian Zurbrügg
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  5. Peter Odermatt
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  6. Marcel Tanner
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  7. Jakob Zinsstag
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  8. Guéladio Cissé
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kouassi Dongo.

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Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

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Dongo, K., Tiembré, I., Koné, B.A. et al. Exposure to toxic waste containing high concentrations of hydrogen sulphide illegally dumped in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Environ Sci Pollut Res 19, 3192–3199 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-012-0823-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-012-0823-2

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