The study discovered that none of the farmers received any healthcare related to pesticide exposure. The healthcare officials had no information on pesticides and any healthcare the farmers received was at their own expense. Paraquat has no specific antidote and the lack of training for the healthcare officials led to inappropriate treatment of intoxication. Note: the Sahelian Pesticide Committee decided to ban Paraquat in 2006 and it should not have been in use at all whilst this study was carried out in 2010.
What happened next Burkina Faso sent a completed and submitted an SHPF incident report to the Secretariat, proposing the listing of Gramoxone® Super in Annex III of the Rotterdam Convention. The documentation met the criteria listed in Annex IV of the Convention, and it was published in PIC Circular XXXII (12, Dec. 2010). The proposal and supporting documentation were made available to the Chemical Review Committee for its consideration in 2011. The Committee considered that the evidence submitted provided sufficient evidence that the use of Gramoxone® Super, under conditions of use in Burkina Faso, resulted in the reported incidents. Further, the Committee determined that there was sufficient evidence that the incidents reported by Burkina Faso were relevant to other States with similar climate, conditions and patterns of use of the formulation. Finally, the Committee concluded at its seventh session that the proposal from Burkina Faso to list Gramoxone® Super (paraquat dichloride formulated as emulsifiable concentrate of 276 g active ingredient/L, corresponding to paraquat ion at 200 g/L) in Annex III to the Convention as a severely hazardous pesticide formulation met the documentation requirements of part 1 of Annex IV and all criteria set out in part 3 of Annex IV to the Convention. The sixth meeting of the Conference of the Parties in 2013 considered the listing of liquid formulations (emulsifiable concentrate and soluble concentrate) containing paraquat dichloride at or above 276 g/L, corresponding to paraquat ion at or above 200 g/L in Annex III of the Rotterdam Convention. A draft Decision Guidance Document was published1 and, whilst there was agreement that the criteria had been met, it will continue to be considered at future COPs. For further details: http://www.pic.int/TheConvention/Chemicals/Recommendedforlisting/ Paraquatdichloride/tabid/2396/language/en-US/Default.aspx
Endnote 1.
http://www.pic.int/Portals/5/download.aspx?d=UNEP-FAO-RC-DGD-Paraquat_SHPF.En.pdf
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THE SHPF TOOLKIT: CASE STUDY
inappropriateness of the PPE to hot climate. Only 37% of the distributors interviewed had warehouses to store the pesticides and of them only 30% had trained warehouse keepers. In some rural towns it was found that the retailers stored the pesticides in their bedrooms.
The Severely Hazardous Pesticide Formulations Toolkit 83