It has been estimated that about 73 per cent of poisonings involving paraquat are suicidal, compared with 14% due to accidents and 1% due to occupational exposure. Paraquat contributed 27.8%, other weedicides 1.7%, malathion 4.7%, other organophosphates 2.1%, organochlorines 2.6%, and other pesticides 1.4%. Over a 10 year period (1979-1988) pesticides accounted for 40.3% of the total cases (n=5,152) of human poisoning in Malaysia. For example, surveys carried out by the local agro-chemical industry showed that in 1987, most of the estimated 715,000 rubber and oil palm smallholder farmers used paraquat. Other aspects of control include the licensing of premises selling and storing for sale of pesticides, labelling of pesticides and the control of import of unregistered pesticides for research and educational purposes.īased on a number of limited studies, poisoning due to pesticides do occur. The main aspect of this Act is to control manufacture and import of pesticides through registration. The principal legislation for the control of pesticides in Malaysia is the Pesticides Act, 1974. In Peninsular Malaysia alone there are about 1.5 million hectares of rubber and 0.6 million hectares of oil palm plantations accommodating almost 4.3 million people. In Malaysia, being an agricultural-based country, the use of pesticides is relatively prevalent. However based on a survey of self-reported minor poisoning in four Asian countries, it was reported that each year 25 million agricultural workers in the Third World are exposed to pesticide poisoning. An estimate by the World Health Organisation (WHO) puts the annual number of severe poisonings at 3 million with about 220,000 deaths. Unlike the industrialised countries, the major threat from pesticides in many developing countries come from acute poisoning.
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