ROUTINE screening for lead levels will be added to other blood tests ordered for children aged 0-4 years at Mount Isa Hospital.
Mount Isa and Townsville Public Health Unit Director Dr Steven Donohue (pictured) said the new testing program at the hospital would start in March, following an information campaign.
Dr Donohue said children under five were regarded as being the most vulnerable to health risks from lead.
He said the new testing program was a component of the Mount Isa Lead Health Management Committee’s Strategic Plan 2013-2016, which was released last year.
Dr Donohue said the Department of Health had provided recurrent funding of $90,000 a year to support the hospital testing and prevention programs, including a review and evaluation after 12 months to see if they are working.
The new testing program is designed to expand the current free blood lead testing program in place in Mount Isa through the QML Laboratory.
“Blood lead testing for children under five allows health authorities to track lead exposure, identify risk factors, and offer targeted interventions designed to minimise the risk of continued lead exposure,’’ Dr Donohue said.
He said the new hospital program would allow health authorities to gauge more accurately the environmental lead health risk to children in higher risks groups within the broader community.
“The current, voluntary free blood lead testing program has a relatively low uptake and probably misses the higher risk groups in the community, such as Indigenous children and children in lower socio-economic circumstances,’’ he said.
“We have some evidence that a public education campaign introduced at Mount Isa over the past few years has had some success in helping reduce the risk of exposure to lead in the environment for children from those sections of the community who have availed themselves of the current free testing program.
“More than 400 children aged under five years have been tested since 2010, either under the current QML free blood lead level testing program, or as a result of tests ordered by individual GPs at a parent’s request.
“Over that period, we have seen a reduction in the average recorded blood lead level in children aged under five from 3.6 micrograms per decilitre (µg/dL) to 3 µg/dL.
“This is well below the current mandatory notification level of 10 µg/dL, above which the Public Health Act 2005 requires the Department of Health to be notified.
“But it is likely that the majority of those 400 children tested are from lower-risk sections of the community, so now is a good time to focus more on children in higher risk groups,” Dr Donohue said.