– Report to follow
LOCAL  healthcare providers and Canadian scientists who carried out a three-year long mercury in fish  awareness programme among hinterland Amerindian women, officially wrapped up their activities last week.
The programme, executed by the Guyana Environmental Management and Capacity Development Programme (GENCAPD) and the Ministry of Health (MOH), had aimed at reducing the intake of mercury in fish by women who live in communities where fish is the main source of protein.
It was dubbed “Alternatives to carnivorous fish diets for pregnant and lactating Amerindian women”.
Last week the organizers said that the project had successfully raised awareness among the targeted population and asserted that they were certain that it would  have a positive  impact on  the health of these women  and other vulnerable persons in their communities with the passage of time.
They also stressed the desirability of continued promotion of the awareness programme, despite its official end.
They reiterated that this was the surest means of protecting pregnant and lactating women and their infants from problems that can develop out of ignorance about the pervasiveness of mercury in its naturally occurring form  of  methyl mercury.
Methyl Mercury occurs naturally in the environment.
Fish absorb the methyl mercury as they feed in these waters and so it builds up in their bodies.
Mercury builds up more in fish that eat other fish and generally pregnant and lactating women who eat these contaminated fish create health problems for themselves, their unborn babies and  their nursing children, an official explained.
Officials said that methyl mercury is of special concern for fetuses, infants and children because it impairs the development of their brains and nervous systems.
When a woman eats fish contaminated with mercury it accumulates in her body, requiring several years to excrete.
If she becomes pregnant within that time, her fetus will be exposed to methyl mercury in the womb and this will affect the fetus’s growing brain and nervous system.
Impacts on cognitive thinking, memory, attention, language, and fine motor and visual spatial skills have been seen in children exposed to methyl mercury in the womb.
Financial support for the GENCAPD/MOH programme had been given by the Government of Canada through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) Fund and  technical support Natural Resources Canada (CANMET).
GENCAPD officials said that the project had been launched in 2008 after it was discovered that the regular consumption of  carnivorous fish  had been mainly  responsible for the high levels of mercury/methyl mercury found in human beings in several areas in the hinterland.
The discovery of fish diets as the main contributory factor was  made during a GENCAPD survey undertaken to track down the main factors influencing mercury concentrations in fish, water, river bed sediments and people in mining and non-mining areas in Guyana from 2001 to 2004.
Prior to that investigation, other researchers had suggested that small and medium-sized mining had been a significant source of mercury contamination in the river bed sediments of the Essequibo and the Mazaruni rivers.
Their report had, however, been unclear about whether the increase in mercury contamination had been due to direct input from amalgamation of gold by miners or to increased soil erosion resulting from mining activity.
The GENCAPD study found that seasonal erosion of soils and jetting in the extractive process of gold were the key paths for entrance of mercury into the aquatic food chain.
The study found that mercury levels in carnivorous fish in both mining and non-mining hinterland areas exceeded the critical limits set by the World Health Organization (WHO).
In a sort of confirmation of this, it was found that Amerindians who ate large quantities of such fish for their proteins had the  highest levels of mercury contamination, much higher than people living in communities where mining and amalgamation of gold took place.
Females, some of whom were pregnant and/or were breastfeeding babies,  were among those so contaminated and found to be the most vulnerable to the health problems associated with such contamination.
Paradoxically, persons living in mining areas had less levels of mercury in their blood than those living in non-mining areas, a phenomenon  that could only be attributed to the fact that these people had less time for fishing, ate other sources of protein and  consequently ate less fish than those in non-mining areas.
The findings of what was described as the most comprehensive survey on mercury contamination in Guyana led to the project “Alternatives to fish diets for pregnant and lactating Amerindian women.”
The targeted women were from Isseneru Village, Region Seven (Cuyuni/Mazaruni) Micobie Village Region Eight (Potaro /Siparuni), and Masakinari Village (aka Gunn’s Strip), Region Nine (Upper Essequibo/Upper Takutu).
The project had comprised the development and distribution of educational material on mercury in fish and on alternative diets, the training of hinterland healthcare providers to promote alternative diets, the provision of information on which fish were safe for consumption and which were not, and the periodic collection of hair samples from the women to monitor levels of mercury within their bodies.
Recently   a comparison of the results of hair sampling exercises carried out in March 2008 and May 2009 among these women showed no significant decrease in mercury levels.
GENCAPD officials found that the main factor keeping the mercury levels high was  the dependency of some of these  women on fish for proteins due to their residential locations, and  their apparently slow response to the challenge of changing their eating habits.
The officials were, however, optimistic that the awareness programme, although now formally closed, would impact significantly in the long-term.
In the last activity prior to closure GENCAPD and Ministry of Health Officials visited the communities of Micobie, Isseneru and Masakinari last week and took the final set of hair samples from the women who had participated in the survey.
The team comprised of scientist attached to CANMET, Suzanne Beauchamp, and Ministry of Health senior staffer Wilton Benn.
They said that these samples, like the previous sets, will be analysed overseas.
The results will be made available to the Ministry of Health.
GENCAPD will   recommend that those women who showed consistently elevated mercury levels during the survey be given a thorough medical and neurological check up for an accurate evaluation of their health.