USAID provides grant for lead level tests

USAID provides grant for lead level tests

BANDUNG: The United States Agency for International
Development has given a US$25,000 grant to a program that will
test lead levels in schoolchildren and street vendors in Bandung.

Suzanne Billharz of the USAID's US-Asia Environmental
Partnership said on Monday such tests were important to determine
the influence of leaded gasoline on human health in order to push
the government to speed up the switch to unleaded gasoline.

"We have provided a grant for two forms for examination; test
kits for 220 elementary school students and direct examinations
(conventionally done by taking blood samples for laboratory
testing) for about 200 other residents," she said.

There have been reports chronicling worsening air quality in
Bandung, with high lead levels in some parts of the city. Recent
checks of vehicles in Bandung found 63 vehicles that failed
emission tests, according to air pollution expert Puji Lestari
from the Bandung Institute of Technology.

"Forty-seven percent of 64 people we randomly examined, from
school children to policemen and parking attendants, showed
increased lead levels in their blood, higher than allowed
levels," she said. -- JP