{"id":963,"date":"2011-07-17T20:59:08","date_gmt":"2011-07-17T10:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/?p=963"},"modified":"2024-10-11T15:48:17","modified_gmt":"2024-10-11T05:48:17","slug":"flood-silt-and-respiratory-protection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/?p=963","title":{"rendered":"Flood silt and respiratory protection"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Our locall free newspaper (<strong>City South News<\/strong>, Wednesday July 23 2011) had an article on the front page showing a young girl helping clean up the South&#8217;s Cricket Ground after the floods earlier this year. This is a scan of part of the front page, with the face mask enlarged and inset to show the fit.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-964\" title=\"Flood mud RPE 2011 inset\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/Flood-mud-RPE-2011-inset-300x275.png\" alt=\"Flood mud RPE 2011\" width=\"300\" height=\"275\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/Flood-mud-RPE-2011-inset-300x275.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/Flood-mud-RPE-2011-inset-640x587.png 640w, https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/Flood-mud-RPE-2011-inset.png 1216w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>There is no way that the face mask could seal against the wearer&#8217;s face. It&#8217;s and adult mask and far too large for a start, so any protection against respirable dust from the silt would be minimal.<\/p>\n<p>Queensland University of Technology has a program &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.news.qut.edu.au\/cgi-bin\/WebObjects\/News.woa\/wa\/goNewsPage?newsEventID=34985\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Flood study to examine health effects of mould and mud<\/a>&#8221; [February 2011] lead by <strong>Professor Lidia Morawska<\/strong>, who has a great indoor air quality laboratory.She notes<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>&#8220;mould and dust from waterlogged materials and silt and organic debris in flood-affected areas could impact on residents&#8217; respiratory health, with the greatest effect typically seen in <strong>children<\/strong> and asthmatics&#8221;.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The child in the photo would have to be exposed to dust from the silt &#8211; and perhaps more so than the adult as she is closer to the ground.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know what the microbiological risk is, but it appears few cases of respiratory illness have been reported, though I suspect there would be gross under-reporting. There have been at least\u00a0three cases\u00a0 of leptospirosis from the Queensland Floods.<\/p>\n<p>The sister newspaper <strong>City North News<\/strong> reported [January 19 2011] &#8220;<em>be alert of the health issues associated with the flood event<\/em>&#8221; but does not seem aware of the issue of toxic dust from the silt. The sister paper City North News reported &#8220;&#8230; <em>the thick, toxic sludge covering its Tennyson<\/em> [adjoining suburb]<em> fields. E. coli has been detected in the muck, leaving the grounds unusable&#8230;<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>There seems to be an amnesia between what is reported one week and and the next.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Local newspapers report the silt from from the Queensland Floods is toxic, but fail to recognise a child is wearing inappropriate respiratory protection on a front page story while shovelling dried silt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,139,20,56],"tags":[196,199,198,200,197,195],"class_list":{"0":"post-963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-infection-control","7":"category-local","8":"category-occupational-hygiene","9":"category-toxicology","10":"tag-brisbane-floods","11":"tag-city-north-news","12":"tag-city-south-news","13":"tag-qut","14":"tag-risk","15":"tag-rpe","16":"czr-hentry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=963"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1754,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions\/1754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dbohs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}