Lead Poisoning in Pediatric Groups: A Global Burden of Disease

Background: Lead poisoning is a major public health issues that affect pediatric age group with different multi-organ damage. In children for instance, it has been discovered that there is no small level or appreciable quantity of lead exposure that is safe for children because of developmental growth and cognitive development at this very crucial stage of life. Children are at very high risk because of their handto-mouth explorative behaviors at this developmental age thereby leading to unintentional ingestion of lead. Persistent exposure to lead has been attributed to difficulty in learning, low intelligence quotient (LIQ), attention deficit and behavioral problems. Even at low levels of lead poisoning, accumulating lines of evidence show an irreversible, deleterious effect on a child’s development that result in learning and behavioral disorders with diminished attention span. In addition, the affected patient present with clinical symptoms ranging from abdominal pain, loss of appetite, renal function impairment, and anemia due to inhibition of synthesis of oxygen carrying protein called hemoglobin. Moreover, childhood disease of lead poisoning could develop into neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson`s disease and Alzheimer`s disease due to epigenetic modification in future. Methods: Literature search strategy was used through electronic data bases, by using PubMed, Google Scholar, and Medline between years 1960 to year 2019. The search strategy that was used is “lead poisoning in children” or “blood toxicity of lead in childhood”. The literature quality was assessed by selecting articles that were relevant to the topic of my discussion based on the standard of Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). In the search 2778 articles were got. Out of the research results obtained, only relevant articles were selected for the purpose of topic being studied. Results: In the view of the evidences above, lead poisoning and toxicity among pediatric group are a global burden of disease because of the emergent industrial activities in the world today. Conclusion: The aim of this review study is to determine the effect of lead toxicity among pediatric age group and its social burden on affected children with possible policy and education awareness to mitigate this menace.