Open Access Volume 3 • Issue 6 • 1000223 Occup Med Health Aff ISSN: 2329-6879 OMHA, an open access journal Open Access Research Article Occupational Medicine & Health Affairs O c c u p a ti o n a l M e d i ci n e & H e al t h A f f a i r s ISSN: 2329-6879 Bunini, et al. Occup Med Health Aff 2015, 3:6 http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2329-6879.1000223 *Corresponding author: Manyilizu WB, Department of Veterinary Medicine and Public Health, Sokoine University of Agriculture, P. O. Box 3021, Morogoro, Tanzania, Fax: +25523260 4382; Tel: +255 767 567 914; E-mail: wmanyilizu@ gmail.com Received November 04, 2015; Accepted November 30, 2015; Published December 10, 2015 Citation: Manyilizu WB, Mdegela RH, Kazwala R, Muller M, Lyche LJ, et al.(2015) Self-reported Health Effects among Short and Long-term Pesticide Sprayers in Arusha, Northern Tanzania: A cross Sectional Study. Occup Med Health Aff 3: 223. doi:10.4172/2329-6879.1000223 Copyright: © 2015 Manyilizu WB, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Keywords: Exposure duration; Pesticides; Sprayers; Self-reported disease Introduction Pesticides are toxic chemicals used to protect crop against insects, other organisms harmful to cultivated plants including weeds thereby increasing crop yields and efciency of food production. Tere are more than 1000 active ingredients, which are marketed as pesticides [1], and developing countries use 25% of the annual global consumption [2]. In Tanzania, a total of 300 active ingredients were registered and used by 2006 [3], including endosulfan, which is restricted by the Stockholm Convention due to its environmental persistence and the documented toxic potential [4]. Furthermore, the Tanzanian pesticide import increased from 500 to 2500 tonnes between 2000 and 2003 and the Arusha region, which is the study location of the present study, is one of the heavy pesticide users in Tanzania . To control the trade and use of pesticides, Tanzania has developed a regulatory framework, adopted from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which aims to ensure best practices when using pesticides. Tanzania has also ratifed the Stockholm convention, a global treaty under the United Nation Environment Program (UNEP), for protecting humans and environment from continued exposure to persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). However, despite the establishment of regulatory frameworks, a high degree of misuse among farmers are reported including over- and under-dosing, mixing of diferent pesticides, dangerous storage of pesticide and spraying equipment and poor use of personal protective gears [5]. Available data demonstrating unsafe pesticide handling practices in Tanzania suggest a high potential for human exposure, with the highest risk of occupational exposures among pesticide sprayers, farmers, and other agricultural workers. Accordingly, previous Tanzanian questionnaire-based studies identifed unsafe pesticide use associated with acute pesticide poisoning as a major problem in the farming community [6,7]. Modern pesticides are reported to cause acute health efects in respondents exposed to high doses with unspecifc symptoms such as headache, dizziness, respiratory problems, nausea, vomiting and eventually death. Furthermore, the data addressing potential adverse efects of long-term exposure to moderate pesticide levels suggest a wide variety of adverse health conditions, including central nervous-, reproductive- and immune system disorders, as well as cancers [8-21]. Tere is also circumstantial evidence on the association of exposure to pesticides with chronic diseases like respiratory problems, dermal disorders, cardiovascular disease, nephropathies, chronic fatigue syndrome and aging [1]. Since health-workers are not adequately trained to identify adverse efects of pesticides [22,23] and because of the Abstract Background: The aim of the present study was to assess whether long-term exposure to pesticides is associated with adverse health effects in professional pesticide sprayers. Methods: The study was conducted in Lake Eyasi Basin and Ngarenanyuki in Arusha region, during the dry season in September-October 2013. In a cross-sectional study, 97 short-term exposed men with at most three months as professional sprayers were compared with 60 long-term exposed men with experience of at least fve years as professional sprayers. The study participants were aged 18-30 years, drawn from the same source population and interviewed using semi structured questionnaire. The questions focused on spraying procedures and on present and recurrent medical history including presence of selected six known pesticide induced health conditions. Results: Organophosphates, carbamates, dithiocarbamates and pyrethroids were the most applied insecticides but also organochlorine fungicides and endosulfan were frequently applied. The majority of the sprayers reported unsafe pesticide use. Mean pesticide uses in litres, spray frequency per crop and per week were 637, and 1.3 respectively for about 270 days a year. Respiratory disease symptoms were the most frequently reported (46/157; 29.3%) followed by skin (27/157; 17.2%), and sight (24/157; 15.3%). When adjusted for age and other predictors, long-term exposed sprayers had signifcantly higher self-reported occurrences of peripheral neuropathy (OR=7.7, CI95%: 1.045-56.728, p=0.045) and respiratory disorders (OR=0.2, CI95%: 0.067-0.501, p=0.001) compared with short-term exposed. Furthermore, 10 sprayers, all long-term exposed reported poor libido and erection problems. Conclusions: These fndings document lack of safety knowledge, safe pesticide management and the implementation of protective measures as well as suggesting that long-term exposure to pesticides increase the risk of experience disease conditions compared to short-term exposure. Self-reported Health Effects among Short and Long-term Pesticide Sprayers in Arusha, Northern Tanzania: A cross Sectional Study Wilbert Bunini Manyilizu 1* , Robinson Hammerton Mdegela 1 , Rudovick Kazwala 1 , Mette Müller 2 , Jan Ludvig Lyche 2 and Eystein Skjerve 2 . 1 Department of Veterinary Medicine and Public Health, Sokoine University of Agriculture, P. O. Box 3021, Morogoro, Tanzania. 2 Department of Food Safety and Infection Biology, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, P. O. Box 8146, Oslo, Norway.