[01] Farhana Rahman, Integrated Community Based Arsenic Mitigation Project (ICBAMP), NGO Forum for Public Health, 4/6, Block-E, Lalmatia, Dhaka, Bangladesh; Appartment No. 1405, Building No. 20, Japan Garden City, Mohammadpur, Dhaka. [02] Saidul Alam, Customs, Excise & VAT Commissionerate, Dhaka (South), National Board of Revenue, Dhaka, Bangladesh. [03] S. M. Nazmul Hassan, Integrated Community Based Arsenic Mitigation Project (ICBAMP), NGO Forum for Public Health, 4/6, Block-E, Lalmatia, Dhaka, Bangladesh. [04] Muhammad Ali Akond, Lab of Microbiology, Department of Botany, Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

This report unearths rural scenario in Bangladesh at existing perspectives of arsenic contamination in terms of health crisis and health seeking behavior, traditional remedial practices, social behavior and implications at multidimensional magnitude; and the underlying factors influencing all these parameters to aid policy making to address the crisis more efficiently. The study addressed 186 arsenicosis patients belonging to 83 arsenic affected villages of 3 districts in Bangladesh through a special and conventional interrogation. Females (56.99%) are more susceptible to arsenicosis compared to males (43.01%) and most of arsenicosis patients (28%) are illiterate. Symptoms as toxicity effects of arsenicosis patients found were white (27%) and black (31%) spots in body and palm and/or sole thickening and roughness (21%). Severe unavailability of proper treatments and enormous social fallout creating mental burden of arsenicosis patients have been exposed in this exploration. The arsenic hazard has posed a strong social dimension disrupting harmony within families and societies and created extreme instability in the social life of patients causing ostracism, marital problems, gender discrimination, increased poverty and death in the arsenic-prone areas of Bangladesh. The upsetting situation of arsenic crisis needs to be addressed immediately for effective national policy, especially for arsenic prone areas of Bangladesh. A motivational program to restore normal individual and social life as well in response to arsenicosis is immediate need.

Arsenicosis, Health Problem, Social Crises, Rural Area, Bangladesh

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