Document Type : Regular Article

Authors

• Sedik A.K. Al-Hiyaly ¹
• Layla Alwan ²

¹ Environmental Research Center, University of Technology, Baghdad, IRAQ.

² Petroleum Technology Department, University of Technology, Baghdad, IRAQ.

Abstract

It’s well known that raw oil deposits would cause various health impacts particularly upon those occupationally exposed workers ranging from mild to lethal health influences. This study therefore was designed to probability of finding any prior health symptoms that may act as early indicators of such sever health syndromes which can assist in prediction and expectation of such problems well before being occurred. A total of 50 workers from Al-Dora oil refinery and 10 individuals from well away sites to act as control samples were subjected to this study. All samples were interviewed individually using personal questionnaire, and subsequently examined for total blood content vanadium. Further examination, consisting clinical blood test, was carried out. The current study has found that most occupationally exposed workers suffering various physiological syndromes such as digestive, dermal, and respiratory dieses. Furthermore, it was found several health symptoms such as hair fallen, teeth decay, vision impairment and weight fluctuation, in addition to other clinical symptoms relating to blood components such as packed cell volume (PCV), lymphocytes and eosinophile (WBC) since all these variables have been found significantly (P≥ 0.05) regarding exposure period, blood vanadium content and the number of health troubles that workers displayed and insignificantly (P≥ 0.05) in case of the worker age. Also, it has been found that the most examined workers were suffering from psychological problems such as depression, stress and malaise.

Keywords

• Raw oil,,
• ,،,؛Oil refinery,,
• ,،,؛Vanadium,,
• ,،,؛Occupational exposure,,
• ,،,؛Physical signs