Silicosis: the lung disease kills silently
EDGAR TSIMANE
Correspondent
| Friday December 5, 2008 00:00
Though he is cured, he says he fears that he could have also contracted silicosis, the debilitating and sometimes fatal lung disease.
Many ex-mineworkers in the SADC region who toil in South Africa, including those from Botswana, are at risk of contracting silicosis. Since the disease is preventable but incurable, many miners have also died silent deaths.
Most mineworkers diagnosed with silicosis are asymptomatic but as the disease progresses, they experience increased breathing difficulties.
In more severe cases, symptoms include cough and shortness of breath.
Exposure to various levels of respirable silica dust can result in varying forms of silicosis such as chronic, accelerated and acute silicosis.
Oxygen being the most abundant element on the earth's crust and silicon being the second, the formation of silica is quite common in nature. The largest quantities of airborne dust are often produced in a mine during blasting and mechanical operations.
The prevalence of silicosis in the mining industry has also been worsened by the advent of TB and HIV, which reached peak levels in the early 1990s.
Dr Ruth Pfau, the medical superintendent at Bamalete Lutheran Hospital, says the hospital has in its possession records bearing numerous silicosis cases from patients who had worked in South African mines.
'Workshops have been conducted over the years to assist patients - former mineworkers - to fill compensation claim forms,' says Dr. Pfau.
According to the Safety in Mines Research Advisory Committee of South
Africa - a body comprising captains of the industry, industry experts and government - to date, 958 miners have been collectively compensated for silicosis since 2002 to the tune of R35 million. Some 3,000 Batswana work in South African mines mostly as labourers.
However, the prevalence of this occupational disease is said to be minimal, if not non-existent in Botswana's own mining industry, according to Rahul Bohra, principal mining engineer at the Department of Mines.
'Dust levels in our country's mines are generally manageable. We do not have reported cases of the disease. The Department of Mines conducts regular safety inspection checks at the mines'.
In addition, he says, the mines are required to provide the department with a monthly health and mortality return. Bohra has disclosed that during the routine inspections, they have also observed that workers are reluctant to use dust masks saying they suffocate.
The prevalence of silicosis disease at South African mines is put at 22 percent of the workforce in the gold sector followed by coal at 7percent while the prevalence is minimal at 4percent in the platinum mines.
All workers in mining operations, including quarries, are said to be potentially at risk.
The principal environmental engineer at the Department of Mines, Hossia Chimbombi, says while mining companies such as BCL and Debswana adequately and satisfactorily control dust emissions at their operations, dust control methods used in quarries are often inadequate.
The International Labour Organisation and the World health Organisation Joint Committee on Occupational Health launched a global programme in 1995 for the elimination of silicosis from the world by 2030.
Meanwhile, workers in underground mining operations may soon breathe a sigh of relief from constant exposure to silica dust.
Scientists at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) are developing a gadget, which may detect dust levels in underground operations and subsequently assist in better control. CSIR describes the gadget as 'an activity recognition tool,' according to scientist Tania van Dyk of the Natural Resources and Environmental Division. Silicosis persists worldwide despite long-standing knowledge of its cause and methods of controlling it. It is a progressive lung disease caused by breathing dust, which contains particles of respirable crystalline silica. The particles are so small that they cannot be seen by the naked eye but under a microscope.
The particles measure less than 10 microns in diameter. If inhaled, silica particles become trapped in the lungs and damage tissue.
In Botswana, for instance, it is a requirement that a complete work history, a chest x-ray, and a lung-function test are conducted on employees to determine whether a worker has the disease or not when entering or exiting the mining industry.
Chimbombi says this is mandatory adding that companies that are non-compliant can be shut down.