Physician Warns Against Prolonged Exposure to Firewood Smoke

 

Osagie, a consultant with the National Hospital, Abuja, told newsmen in Abuja, on Thursday, that prolonged exposure to wood smoke was a major public health issue in Nigeria and in the world.

According to him, “More than 70 per cent of Nigerians still live in the rural areas and out of these people who live in the rural areas, more than 90 per cent depend on firewood as a source of fuel to cook and to hit their homes.

“So, prolonged exposure to firewood smoke is more in the rural areas.

“Even in the urban areas, people still use firewood to heat their homes. Even in the developed world during winter people use firewood; and while enjoying the heat they also inhale a lot of smoke; and this is a major public health problem.

“Currently, more than 2 million people die from health issues related to the inhalation of smoke; and these are preventable deaths.

“In Nigeria, 79,000 preventable deaths occur yearly as a result of prolonged exposure to wood smoke.”

The doctor said that firewood smoke had a lot of harmful substances, adding that experts had identified more than 30 harmful substances in smoke with many more yet to be identified.

“I must say that the substances found in wood smoke are smaller than the amount of harmful substances you get in cigarettes smoke where you can get up to 4000 harmful substances.

“But that does not mean it is less harmful because the most potent harmful substance, which is carbon monoxide, is present in both cigarette and wood smoke and that causes a lot of problems to the body.”

He said that prolonged exposure to smoke affected the respiratory organ which caused diseases like chronic obstructive airway diseases, asthma and lung cancer.

“Some doctors reported that about 60 per cent of asthmatics live in areas where you have this chronic exposure to smoke both indoors and outdoors.”

Osagie said that long exposure to smoke also affected the eyes, skin and heart.

“The person exposed to this firewood smoke can have health issues especially eye diseases; you will see irritation to the eyes; the patient will have conjunctivitis.

“For the skin, of course, those chemicals they settle on the skin and lead to increase in skin diseases. People who are exposed to smoke have more incidences of heart diseases.

“What affects the heart would affect the blood supply and invariably would also affect the kidneys.

“People with prolonged exposure to smoke are likely to have problems with the blood supply to their kidneys, thereby reducing their kidney function.”       

He, however, warned pregnant women against exposure to smoke, noting that the harmful substance inhaled also affected the unborn child.

Osagie said that the use of firewood not only affect the health of human beings but also had a negative effect on the environment.

“It is also affecting the health of the earth because the carbon monoxide rises to deplete the ozone layer, leading to global warming.

“There is also deforestation, records show that over to 6 billion trees are fell every year, and we are not planting.”

He advised that alternative means of cooking such as gas should be made more available and affordable.

Osagie, however, said that if firewood or kerosene stoves must be used, it should be used in the open air not indoors. 

“But if you must use the firewood, it is advisable to use it in the open because the effect when you use it in the open is less than when you bring it inside the house.

“It is also advisable again if you are using firewood that you use dried firewood, the wet firewood that is not well dried does not burn very well; and if it doesn’t burn very well, the smokes oozing from such are more harmful to the body than the dried one.”    

The consultant also noted that short exposure to smoke during fire outbreak could cause direct lung damage to the victim.

 “Studies have shown that that acute exposure to smoke can overtime make the patient oversensitive to inhaled substances.

“You can imagine someone that did not have difficulty in breathing before but after that single experience will have started having difficulty in breathing.”

He said that if such a patient was properly managed, he could recover from such injury.