UNU Update: Reducing blue baby syndrome in Syria

	UNU Update
	The newsletter of United Nations University and its network of research and training centres and programmes
		Issue 14: February 2002

INWEH leads project to reduce
blue baby syndrome in Syria

A pilot project headed by UNU International Network on Water, Environment and Health (UNU/INWEH) is under way to help villages in Syria identify ways of reducing nitrate contamination of water supplies, a problem linked to life-threatening Blue Baby Syndrome.

Most small villages in Syria lack adequate wastewater disposal systems, relying on individual household sewage pits. This contributes to contamination of groundwater, which is often used without treatment for drinking. Extensive use of manure as fertilizer aggravates the problem as runoff seeps into aquifers.

A major water contaminant in such places is nitrate, which poses a particularly high health risk to infants three months old and younger. Very young children exposed to high nitrate pollution are prone to methemoglobinemia, a condition that diminishes the blood’s capacity to transport and transfer oxygen and can result in death or retardation.

Symptoms include a blue discoloration of the lips, nose, and ears, crying, vomiting and diarrhea. Residents of villages in the valleys of Syria’s hilly northeast coast are most prone, since villages upstream increase the nitrate concentration in drinking water, resulting in levels many times above the 10 milligrams per liter considered safe.

In the pilot project, jointly funded with the Arab Gulf Fund for U.N. Development, a village with typical nitrate problems will be chosen from among many along Syria’s northeast coast. The project team will evaluate groundwater pollution from sewage pits (current design, construction and maintenance practices), the impact of fertilization techniques and the relationship between nitrate concentration and the proximity of drinking water wells to pollution sources.

The four-month study will establish guidelines for efficient and economical sewage disposal design; for fertilization practices; and for buffer zones for wells to minimize nitrate pollution. It will also promote planting of special crops around sewage pits capable of reducing nitrate from seeping wastewater, and will train local staff to implement the guidelines.

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