The present situation of endemic arsenism in China

In China fluorosis and arsenism are the most harmful global chemical diseases which involve the largest population in China. These diseases mainly occur in rural area and the prevention and treatment have become the key problem of getting rid of poverty and enjoying the primary sanitary care. Fluorosis distributes over all provinces, cities and autonomous regions except Shanghai in China. There are 1280 counties, 149,541 villages affected by fluorosis and the affected population is about 109 million. Mild patients have dental Fluor’s and severe ones suffered skeletal Fluor’s. Due to no effective treatment, the patients may lose labor ability and be disabled for whole lives. Up to now, there are 45.70 million patients of dental fluorosis and 2.72 million patients of skeletal fluorosis. Since 1980s, Epidemic arsenism suddenly happened in China continent. Now the population in the epidemic regions has exceeded 2 million in four provinces-Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi and Guizhou. The diagnosed patients have been over 20,000. The disease region is still expanding.