Environmental Pollution and Human Health
Illés Dési and László Nagymajtényi
Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and WHO Collaborating Center for Chemical Safety,
University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary
Corresponding author: Prof. Illés Dési
Department of Public Health
University of Szeged
Dóm tér 10.
H-6720 Szeged, Hungary
Telephone: (+36) 62 545 19
Fax number: (36) 62 545 120
E-mail: des@puhe.szote.u-szeged.hu
CEJOEM 2000, Vol.6. No.2-3.:134-137
Key words:
Environment, human health, Eastern Europe, arsenic, pathological findings drinking water,
and geochemical factors
Abstract:
The serious environmental situation of Central and Eastern Europe is treated in the paper with
special emphasis on that of the Danube-Kris-Mures-Tisa Euroregion. In Hungary water pollution
(surface and subsurface) is one of the major problems. A special water pollution issue arose when
high arsenic content was found in drinking waters of four counties in Southeast Hungary. The same
was detected on the other side of the border in Romania and Yugoslavia. The presence of arsenic is
due to geological factors and not to human pollution, but the results were just as severe.
Epidemiological and pathological clinical findings in children and adults are further described
with a suggestion for investigation of the early functional impairment of the nervous and immune
systems or the chromosomes (so-called biomarkers) in order to detect the consequences of low-level
pollution. The present Hungarian As levels in drinking water are all below 50 µg/L (the former WHO
recommendation). The present WHO recommendation of 10 µg/L cannot as yet be fulfilled.
Received: 31 July 2000
Accepted: 06 September 2000
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