ABSTRACT
Urinary As levels were significantly higher in the endemic area where there were 51 out of 178 people displayed symptoms of arsenicosis, while arsenicosis was absent from 175 people surveyed in the control regiment. This clearly indicates that people in the As endemic areas did not use only As safe water for drinking, and that arsenicosis is still a serious problem in the Xinjiang As endemic area. Porphyrins and malondialdehyde have been used as biomarkers of effects for As exposure (Ng et al., 2005; Wang et al., 2009). In this study, these two biomarkers of individuals from the endemic area were significantly higher than those of controls when their urinary As levels were greater than 150 µg/g of creatinine. With a population that has a large variation in drinking habits, further study is needed to quantify the health outcome on these individuals not withstanding that the water intervention program has been in place for over 16 years. May is the dry season in Xinjiang, and the drinking water supply for the villagers may not have been sufficient in some instances; furthermore, the high As containing water is regarded by some local people, as having a better taste. These factors could contribute to the elevation of urinary As level. When we compare our results to the results published by Qian et al. (1985), there has been a minor increase in the percentage of villagers with a normal urinary As level (43% compare to 40%) and a dramatic decrease in the percentage of villagers with a high urinary As level (10% compared to 20%). A large difference of total urinary As concentration between the arsenicosis endemic area and the control area still exits, and the percentage with arsenicosis symptoms still qualifies regiment 123 in Chepaizi area, Xinjiang, China as a highrisk endemic area. After cross-tabulation between gender, age and occupation groups between villagers with and without symptoms and education levels, the following observations can be made: • the percentage of male villagers with symptoms
were higher than the female villagers; • none of the students and villagers who had terti-
ary education showed symptoms of arsenicosis; • peasants and workers had a higher percentage
of arsenicosis symptoms;
Table 2. Urinary arsenic concentrations and subjects with arsenicosis in endemic and control areas in Chepaizi of Dzungaria prior to and 16 years after the water intervention.
