Kosovo Human Development Report 2010 - UNDP Kosovo - United ...

(iv) Residents of high-risk environments:
one of the most important
factors affecting health care outcomes
is living in an environment
with region-specific risk factors,
such as soil, water and air pollution.
The Mitrovicë/Mitrovica area,
for example, is heavily polluted by
lead and heavy metals, a product
of its history as the largest lead production
industrial area in Europe.
Although lead production in Mitrovicë/Mitrovica
was suspended in
2000 due to health concerns, communities
living there must still deal
with these environmental hazards
and their negative health effects,
in particular, elevated levels of lead
in their blood. People affected with
chronic lead intoxication, especially
children, are at tremendous
risk of a lifetime of developmental
and behavioural disabilities and
other adverse health conditions. If
not relocated from the camps and
treated immediately, these children
face high risks of having neurological
disorders, anemia, kidney
problems, convulsions and fainting
spells, bleeding gums and learning
disabilities throughout their lives. 148
According to a WHO assessment of
the Mitrovicë/Mitrovica region in 2004,
25 percent of all children aged two to
three years had elevated (>10 mg/dl)
Blood Lead Levels (BLL). WHO found
that BLLs were even higher among
the Kosovo-RAE communities living
in three camps for internally displaced
persons (IDPs) which had been established
in the highly lead-contaminated
area of Northern Mitrovicë/Mitrovica.
The BLLs of the blood samples collected
in 2004 from the Kosovo-RAE children
in these three camps, Cesmin Lug,
Kablar and Zitkovac, indicated that all
74 | KOSOVO HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2010
children had BLLs higher than 65 mg/
dl.). 149 In 2007, the health conditions of
the residents of these camps remained
challenging, despite the resettlement
of a majority of the Kosovo-RAE families
to Osterode Camp. A study by the
US Center for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) in 2007 150 showed that
30 percent of children in Cesmin Lug
and Osterode maintained high capillary
blood lead levels requiring chelation
therapy. 151 A later 2008 study
conducted by the Mitrovicë/Mitrovica
Institute for Health showed that lead
levels in 21 of 53 children measured
were higher than the testing equipment
could measure, while only two
showed levels within the norm of 10
mg/dl. 152
(v) Kosovo-RAE communities: from
the perspective of multiple deprivations,
Kosovo-RAE communities
are by far the most excluded from
health care. The segment of this
community still living in temporary
camps and in suburban ghettoes is
most vulnerable of all. Specific barriers
to health inclusion faced by
Kosovo-RAE communities include
high poverty and unemployment
rates (limiting their ability to meet
health costs) and low education
levels and high school drop-out
rates (undermining their ability
to make the best available health
and nutrition choices). Those living
in the Mitrovicë/Mitrovica region
face another, even more serious
risk: heavy metal poisoning from
lead contamination. A Kosovo-RAE
female child living in a temporary
camp in Mitrovicë/Mitrovica will
be the least healthy, the least nourished
and have the least access to
health care of all Kosovo’s children.