JEDDAH: Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, governor of Makkah province, announced yesterday that efforts would be intensified to prevent the illegal under-the-counter sale of dangerous pesticides, particularly those containing aluminum phosphide.
The announcement comes a day after four Bangladeshi workers were rushed to Jeddah’s King Fahd Hospital because they accidentally poisoned themselves with an organophosphate-based pesticide, a less dangerous but also potentially fatal pesticide that is easily available in the market.
One of the men who had been in critical condition is now stable. “The victims are in stable condition and are expected to leave the hospital soon,” said a source at the hospital who did not want to be named because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the press. “The workers inhaled a normal organophosphate-based insecticide that is commonly used for gardening.”
The men reportedly applied this pesticide in their 20-square-meter rental unit off Palestine Street. The men returned from work and went to sleep; a friend who stopped by later found the men suffering from acute poisoning and called an ambulance. The men were then rushed to hospital.
The case spurred a reaction prompting the Makkah governor to reiterate his call for a crackdown on the sale of potentially lethal pesticides. The governor had made similar statements shortly after the Feb. 23 incident at Jeddah’s Basateen Village where the use of aluminum phosphide in a vacant unit resulted in the death of two Danish children next door.
Prince Khaled also asked yesterday the Civil Defense and local health officials to launch awareness campaigns to warn people of the dangers of insecticides.
The ministries of Agriculture and Commerce have been instructed by Prince Khaled to thoroughly inspect the market, warehouses and insecticide vendors for restricted-use pesticides.
Aluminum phosphide has been rated by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as Toxicity Class I, the most dangerous category, and is strictly prohibited for use anywhere except under controlled conditions in the agricultural sector. The organophosphate-based pesticide used by the Bangladeshi workers has not been specifically identified, but the EPA ranks one of the more common organophosphate pesticides as Toxicity Class II, which for years has been prohibited for use at homes or in residential or commercial lawns.
Dr. Tammam Al-Darwish, an official at King Fahd Hospital, said that the aluminum phosphide-based insecticides had no antidote, and that the four Bangladeshi men were lucky they used a different, less-dangerous (but also potentially fatal) substance.
“People poisoned with aluminum phosphide insecticides often die and all we can do is offer life support,” he noted.
Aluminum phosphide insecticides come in small tablets, which release toxic phosphine gas when exposed to water. The gas may have a garlic odor, but can be fatal even if the concentration isn’t high enough in the air to cause the smell. The pesticide is restricted for use in Saudi Arabia, but is often bought in bulk from agricultural-products suppliers and repackaged into smaller doses to be sold under the table to customers.
The Jeddah Municipality in collaboration with several governmental bodies has organized a campaign to crack down on illegal selling of aluminum phosphide insecticide tablets, according to Mahmoud Kinsarah, head of the Municipality’s Licensing and Commercial Monitoring Department. However, knowing that the sale of these tablets is illegal, vendors do not openly advertise the sale of these tablets, making enforcement a challenge.
“Unfortunately the substance is still sold under the table in various shops around the city (despite the Saudi regulations),” said Kinsarah, who noted that it was hard to locate shops dealing with the deadly tablets because they don’t usually sell them to Saudi citizens fearing that they might be undercover officials. “Tablets are sold in primitive canisters with no instructions or warnings to highlight how to use the insecticide and most importantly how to avoid poisoning,” he said.
