Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said lead poisoning “stands out” as one of the “most pressing” public health challenges in the world, including in Georgia, at the panel discussion titled Towards a Lead-Free Future, held on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

In his remarks, Garibashvili thanked Samantha Power, the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, for inviting him to the discussion to highlight Georgia’s “success story” in combating and preventing lead poisoning.

Recent studies show that one in three children worldwide suffers from lead poisoning, [...] It is crucial to understand that lead poisoning contributes to nearly 1.5 percent of annual global death rate and poses severe risks, especially for children and pregnant women in low and middle-income countries”, the PM noted.

Reviewing Georgia’s success regarding the problem, Garibashvili said his Government had taken “immediate action” after the multiple indicator cluster surveys, conducted by UNICEF in 2018 with the support of the USAID, which revealed that 51 percent of children between the ages of two and seven had blood levels of lead “above the acceptable threshold”.

We swiftly initiated relevant steps aimed at mitigating and preventing lead poisoning in the country”, the PM stressed at the panel discussion, which included USAID Administrator Samantha Power, Mudrick Soraga, Minister of State President's Office, Labour, Economy and Investment of Tanzania and Lucy Perez, the Senior Partner at management consulting company - McKinsey & Company.

The Head of the Government highlighted the national response package launched in 2019, with the support of UNICEF and USAID, which included “a wide-scale” campaign to increase public awareness and develop a lead control system.

Within the programme, the atmospheric environmental conditions were assessed to identify the sources of lead poisoning, Garibashvili emphasised, adding the Government’s “effective response” initiative resulted in “speed improvement” of the indicators.

Garibashvili stressed that in the fourth year of the programme, “a remarkable” 75 percent decrease was observed in the prevalence of blood lead levels among children in the regions of Georgia.

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