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| Children suffering from lead poisoning wait to see medical workers, in Gusau, Nigeria |
Cleanup efforts in the area are making progress. But the medical aid group warns that time for the cleanup project is running out as the rainy season closes in.
Before lead-poisoned children can be treated, the dirt they walk over and play in must be cleaned up, or they will just be re-contaminated again.
Three years after the world’s worst recorded lead-poisoning outbreak was discovered here in northwestern Nigeria, the last of the villages identified as being in extreme danger is now being cleaned up, through a process called “remediation.”
The process involves removing contaminated dirt and replacing it with clean soil. But rains in the area have become more frequent.
Simon Tyler, who heads Doctors Without Borders in Nigeria, says if it keeps raining, cleanup workers may have to stop, as the wet dirt becomes heavy and the sloshy mud is hard to control.
Hundreds of children in the region have already died from lead poisoning and many more have been permanently disabled.
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