Load shedding has affected operations of the 3000 United States Dollar laboratory machine used to examine the levels of lead among people in the highly lead polluted town of Kabwe, Central Province.
Province Permanent Secretary, Milner Mwankampwe, who inspected the railway clinic where the only inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry machine is installed has appealed to ZESCO to stop load shedding the health facility to ensure the testing of lead is not interrupted.
Mr Mwanakampwe noted that President Hakainde Hichilema instituted a multi-ministerial team to address lead poisoning in Kabwe saying that efforts must be made to ensure that the matter is addressed.
“This is because lead poisoning is a big issue in Kabwe, and the Presidential directive is a policy directive that must be followed, so ZESCO should support this effort to test and treat lead poisoning in Kabwe.” He said.
And Zambia Mining Environmental and Remediation Project (ZEMRIP) Medical Doctor Christopher Lengwe explained that lab technicians have been carrying out their operations after load shedding to try and meet the demand.
He disclosed that 255 out of which 11 people were found with high levels of lead, were screened from different parts of the district since March when the machine was installed.
“All the 11 are children from high risk areas of Katondo, Makululu and Kasanda compounds, they have since been put on treatment. We know that the majority of the people with high levels of lead are children, so our focus is on children and pregnant women because of the risk that it can be passed on to the unborn child.” He said.
He explained that there is a high demand for lab tests among residents.
Meanwhile, ZEMRIP Kabwe Project Manager Patson Mwiinga said the machine, which is the only one in Central Province, has a capacity to examine the levels of all heavy metals.
With the growing manganese mining in the region, Mr Mwiinga said the machine could be used to test people from other mining districts.
And ZESCO Principal Engineer Enock Chishimba said he would table the matter with the utility company to see if railway clinic could be exempted from the load shedding schedule.
Mr Chishimba explained that load management is intended to preserve power supply which has been affected by the effects of climate change.
“However, the matter will be discussed to see how we can resolve it,” he said.
