caustic education and prevention project...update

This is soap balls made at a soap factory.( In the production of the soap the following are used: Palm oil (red), heated until it turns to fried oil, it is allowed to get cold. It is then mixed with the lye, which comes in powder form, and is mixed continuously (like mixing sugar and flour to make a cake), the lye dissolved in warm water (this is where you will sometimes see a bottle of the lye in a water bottle that is accidentally drank by a child) and is added to the process. After the mixing, the resulting product is a semi solid and liquid product that is then molded in the hand in a circular motion to form the round ball like soaps for sale. The bigger the soap the higher the price. The soap sells for $5.00 to $20.00 Liberian dollars. (The equivalent of our .07 cents - .29 cents. The exact quantity in the mixture to lye to oil and water varies and that also affects the quality of the soap. But the best quality of soap is obtained when a bag of lye is mixed with six gallons of oil. That high quality of soap is too expense to make for sales purchase and the other soap is intended for lower income of people.The process is very dangerous and that is why the soap makers sometimes wear protective covering on their hands to avoid their body and skin from coming in contact with the lye, hot oil, or even the thick liquid that is formed after the mixture.)

Little children helping their mother at the soap factory.

The lye is dissolved in warm water and is used in mixing the lye (powder) and the oil. It is dissolved lye that sometimes is left over and stored in dwelling areas, hence the children come into contact. This is what is being drank by children only it mostly is stored in water bottles and looks much clearer.

Here are children who are affected on a daily basis from drinking this poison. (pictures from dr. Sherman) Most of these children die. Many are given stomach tubes in order to survive and receive nourishment. But from there they deal with infections and most dont make it.

You can see in these Xrays.. how swallowing the lye has affected these children's esophagus.

Caustic Ingestion causes serious injury to the human body. Key among which are injuries to the tissue, severe injury occurs within minutes of contact. Most severely injured tissues are the squamous epithelial cells of the oropharynx, hypopharynx and esophagus (the most commonly involved organ). The stomach is involved in only 20% of all caustic ingestion. Tissue edema occurs immediately and may persist for 48hours, eventually progressing to airway obstruction.

Over the next 2-4 weeks, the scar tissue thickens and contracts to form strictures. The incidence of stricture formation primarily depends upon the depth of the burn. Superficial burns result in strictures in fewer than 1% of cases; full thickness burns result in strictures in nearly 100% of cases. Severe burns also may be associated with esophageal perforation.

Types of Injuries caused by Caustic Ingestion- Superficial Injury – A minor damage to the surface lining of the esophagus (Mucosa) and Damaged to the esophagus wall (Muscle)

Perforation or Rupture of the esophagus – This damage is severe and requires surgery

Global Orphan Outreach just finished a campaign of education and awareness to help prevent this tragedy. We did radio dramas, billboards, banners, posters, stickers, etc...In the next several pics you will see the distribution of poster throughout the city. The posters were hung in many areas including the following: Hospitals, clinics, market areas, caustic vendor areas, around Monrovia, in Bong Cty area-Gbarnga (this is 3 hours outside the city), gas stations, stores/shops, major streets, and corners and in homes.

This is Professor Flomo who was doing some education with children and families about this very issue. Professor Mogana Flomo, who is a professor at Cuttington University teaching finance, used to be a master soap maker. He was involved in making soap for the refugees in the Guinea Forest Region when he was a refugee in N'zerekore, Guinea. He employed 100 refugee families who were trained by him to produce soap in their homes and he did his own caustic prevention posters at one time and placed them in all the homes where soap was made.

He has different methods of making soap with different kinds of oil (kernel oil and palm oil). He can make the cake soap and the watery soap and other different types. Professor Flomo stated that most of victims of lye accidents come from the villages in his opinion. The picture below is of him and a little boy who just the day before drank some Lye. He told them to get to the clinic asap. They didnt even to do that until he told him.

This is one of the billboards that was put up. The bill board is located at the Old road junction just along the main road. We are still working on a second one.

Many many stickers that had Mr. yuk on it for labeling containers were given out.

Banners were also hung in Liberia with a few more to be hung yet.

Radio interviews are still to take place. This was a great place to start as far as helping to prevent these injuries, But much needs to be done in the way of education to help prevent. This poison prevention campaign was the first of its kind in Liberia. Our goal is to take this campaign out side the city into other counties as funding allows. We are also following up with several cases of children who were affected and wanting to help them in some way possible with their condition. If you are interested in getting involved with this project, please contact us. We could use your help!