The New Nation - Internet Edition

Aapo Saask

The Swedish Sustainability Foundation has developed a three step remedy to cure people suffering of arsenic poisoning.

As pressure on water is increasing new ground water sources are being taken into use. Some of them contain heightened levels of natural arsenic. Althongh arsenic in drinking water is today recongnized as a danger top human health in more than seventy different countries, this far Bangladesh and West Bengal seem to be worst afflicted.

There are no other contaminations in water that are more difficult to remove than arsenic.

The arsenic poisoning of drinking water in Bangladesh is the largest poisonign in history according to WHO (the United Nation's World Health Organization). More than 100 million people are exposed to unsafe levels of arsenic and millions are already afflicted by poisoning. Seemingly perfect well water from millions of wells that heve been bored during the last decades contains natural arsenic from the ground. The arsenic lodges in the organs and breaks down the immune system. The sufferer is progressively afflicted with carcinoma, blindness, renal failure, diabetes and cancer.

A healthy and nitritious life-style may post-pone of entirely counteract the arsenic afflication, but poor people will suffer.

Until now there has been no cure for this pandemic and there have been no appropriate ways of removing the arsenic from the water.

After a decade of studics and development work by the international community Swedish Sustainability Foundation has identified a strong mixture of interventions that will alleviate the cnormous suffering. For those already afflicted WHO has identified some nutraccuticals that will neutralize or flush out the arsenic. One of the most promising nutraceuticals is provided by an embryo to mobile clinics run by the Bangladesh Company Viola Vitalis. A there months treatment will accomplish a complete cure. If the patient stops drinking contaminated water, the symptoms do not recur.

At the same time Grameen Shakti, a subsidiary of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh- Shakti means energy, has ordered a proposal for a prototype system from the Royal Institute of Technology of Stockholm, Sweden. The system will run on biogas and produce electricity and completely arsenic free water at a very low cost. It is also and easy to oparate.

To top it up, the Swedish Sustainability Foundation is also sponsoring a village system for making Spirulina- a well Known health product in west. Spirlina is an algae with unusually high contents of protein, minerals and vitamins which fetches exorbitant prices in wesrern health stores, but can be grown locally at cost at all-requiring just sunshine and water to thrive. Good nutrition is extremely important for people recovering from arsenic poisoning but also for everyone else of course and Spirulina is a perfect nutritional complement to staple food like rice.

The Swedish Sustianability Foundation has been set up to support science based innovative companies that promote sustanable energy, clean water, nutrition and health.

The board of the Foundation has businees competence, but also scientific competence from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden snd the Karolinska Institute in Solna, Sweden.