Mercury-Added Products Management: Challenges In Developing Countries And Lessons Learned From Medical Facility
- Author:
Mohamad Mahathir Amir Sultan
;
Goh Choo Ta
;
Peter John Peterson
;
Sharifah Ezat Wan Puteh
;
Mazlin Mokhtar
- Publication Type:Journal Article
- Keywords:
Mercury-added product;
medical facility;
mercury management;
Developing Countries
- From:Malaysian Journal of Public Health Medicine
2017;17(1):59-68
- CountryMalaysia
- Language:English
-
Abstract:
The risks of mercury use have prompted the establishment of Minamata Convention on Mercury which placed strong
emphasis on management of mercury-added products. This convention aims to reduce and phase out the use,
manufacturing and trade of mercury-added products including batteries, switches and non-electronic measuring devices.
This commitment will cause significant impacts especially in the developing countries in designing the right approach to
achieve it. This is also true for medical industry which is well known for the utilization of mercury-added devices and
dental amalgam in its services but had embarked on efforts in eliminating mercury for many years. The experiences
learned within a medical facility can be useful in efforts to meet this global ambition of mercury phase out. This paper
aims to provide conceptual discussion on the challenges faced by developing countries and lessons learned from medical
facility that can helps the formulation of appropriate approaches to manage mercury-added products. The paper adopted
medical industry as a case study and used document analysis to discuss the issue. The main challenges identified for
developing countries include lacks of capacity, funding, data and newer technologies. Based on analysis of previous
studies, this study proposed a mercury management framework in medical facility and identified the recommended
practices, namely technological application, policy instrument, capacity building and guidelines development. These
identified approaches are found to have specific relationships between cost and potential impacts, hence giving
flexibility for adoption based on the available resources in promoting better mercury management system
- Full text:P020170622455317637157.pdf
