Government launches large-scale program to handle lead content problem

Paata Imnadze, Scientific Director of the National Center for Disease Control and Public Health, says the full results of the research on lead content will be published by April 20. As Imnadze believes that the primary data of the survey is not alarming.

"There were over 1600 children involved in the study. According to the results, there were 16 children who had significantly increased levels of blood lead. A deeper study is underway to detect the reason of increased levels of their blood lead,” Imnadze said.

According to him, the state program will soon be launched to “study the causes of lead content in the blood".

“A large-scale governmental program is being developed to investigate the causes of lead level in the blood. A meeting has already been held with the Prime Minister and a large-scale governmental program is being prepared with involvement of various agencies, including: healthcare, environment, agriculture, in order to develop a long-term program in the country to eradicate the lead-related problems. We have about the same situation as it was in 80-90s in the US and European countries. There were long-term programs in these countries in order to reduce the lead content, " Paata Imnadze said.