Primary school children in the heart of south Durban's industrial area appear to have one of the highest rates of asthma in the world, a team of university researchers reported on Thursday.
Releasing interim results of a new health study at a briefing at the University of Natal's Nelson Mandela Medical School, the researchers said there was a "strikingly high" rate of asthma among children at the Settlers Primary School in Lakhimpur Road, Merebank.
More than half of the 248 pupils and teachers who took part in the study were reported to be suffering from severe or mild asthma symptoms.
Of these, about 17 percent were believed to be suffering from moderate to severe asthma, 14 percent had mild but persistent symptoms, and 24 percent had mild but intermittent symptoms. About 44 percent reported no symptoms at all.
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In comparison to the Settlers school pupils who live in Umlazi, the asthma rate was also markedly higher among the children who live and study in Merebank.
The research team said acute cases of asthma appeared to be closely related to emissions of sulphur dioxide and other air pollutants measured in the school grounds.
However, the researchers cautioned that the results were only interim findings and were the outcome of a "relatively inexpensive and fast study".
The principal author of the report, Professor Tom Robbins of the University of Michigan in the United States, outlined the study results on Thursday afternoon to a group of academics, government and city officials, community groups, industry representatives and parents and teachers from Settlers School.
The study forms part of a multi-stakeholder industrial pollution study initiated in September 2000 by environment minister Valli Moosa shortly after a survey by The Mercury that suggested an unusually high rate of leukaemia and cancer in Merebank children.
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