1. Investigation of uranium pollution for healthy adult's blood for some area in Najaf Governorate using CR-39 SSNTD technique.
- Author
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Abbas, Samia Kareem, Saleh, Dhuha Saad, and Hussain, Hayder Saleem
- Subjects
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URANIUM , *RADIOACTIVE contamination , *URANIUM mining , *BACKGROUND radiation , *POLLUTION , *AGE groups , *SERUM - Abstract
In Iraq, Depleted Uranium (DU) was and still an environmental pollution problem since its levels raised after misuse of weapons forbidden in Gulf war I and II, caused environmental pollution with uranium in limited areas of Iraq, which lead to different diseases, children malformations, leukemia, and cancers till now, the contaminated places have not been limited or isolated to stop and avoid the spreading of this radioactive contamination. There is a natural source of radiation in Najaf governorate the uranium mine of Al-Heera, the present study aimed to investigate uranium pollution in regions nearly the mine and other far away regions in the governorate using blood samples healthy people for this investigation.The present study is the first in this field for Najaf population, no previous such studies has been done for comparison purpose. The presence of uranium contamination was investigated in samples taken from 88 healthy adult individuals distributed in three groups, the first group G1 number =29 exposed to environmental pollution with uranium (contaminated areas), the second group G2 number =27 exposed to functional uranium pollution and the third group G3 number =32 (non-exposed to pollution according to their areas of residence) in Najaf governorate. Three millimeters (3ml) of venous blood were taken by venipuncture. The serum was separated by centrifugation for 10 min at 2500 r.p.m. The serum samples were placed in a tube with a detector CR-39, and stored at -80°C in the deep freezer for 90 days to measure serum uranium concentration by natural exposure procedure. The CR-39 SSNTD was used to calculate the uranium concentrations in blood serum. The results showed that the average uranium concentrations were 1.872±0.06µg/l, 1.947±0.05µg/l and 1.804±0.09µg/l in the first, second and third groups, respectively. The presence of contamination was approved after comparing the results to the WHO standard value of 0.5µg/l. The results also showed that the highest levels of uranium concentration in the blood were recorded in the areas farthest from the uranium mine in Al-Heera. The results also recorded that the group of youth less than 30 years was the highest contamination of the other age groups, with a rate of 1.953±0.07 µg/l. Depending on the results, the uranium mine in Al-Heera is not a major source of pollution, and there may be another source of radioactive contamination in Najaf governorate. It may be a relic of the wars that Iraq has been subjected to during the previous years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2022
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