Gold processing activities in Paya Seumantok Village, Krueng Sabee District, Aceh Jaya Regency, are known to utilize traditional mercury, posing a health threat to the workers and the local community. This study aims to identify local people’s urinary mercury levels near the gold processing plant in Paya Seumantok Village and to see the relationship between mercury levels and disease symptoms exhibited by the local people. To this end, ninety-one participants were recruited from a total member of a population of 928 people, determined using Slovin’s formula. The urine sample was collected using a purposive sampling technique following the procedure set by the regulation of the Minister of Health no. 43/2013. AAS Instrument was used to analyze the urinary mercury level. Sixteen out of 91 urine samples exhibited no mercury, while the rest, 75 samples, were found to contain mercury. The average urinary mercury level among local people near the site was 8.392 μg/L (SD: 6.721 g/L), while the minimum and maximum urinary mercury levels in this study were 0.19 μg/L and. 28.31 μg/L, respectively. Thirty-six samples were found to have mercury levels exceeding the acceptable threshold (7 μg/L), while thirty-nine samples had urinary mercury levels below the threshold. This study concluded that there is no relationship between urinary mercury levels and symptoms of acute and chronic diseases experienced local community and workers at the gold processing site in Paya Seumantok Village, Krueng Sabee District, Aceh Jaya Regency (p > 0.05).
The cause of the histological damage of Faunus ater (gastropod mollusk) gonad has been identified in the samples from two rivers, namely Bale River and Reuleng River which flow through residential, agricultural and industrial areas. The heavy metal concentration within the tissue of Faunus ater was analyzed with Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (Shimadzu AA 630). Meanwhile, the histological damage on gonads was observed microscopically. Afterwards, the damage levels obtained from the two respective rivers were compared and analyzed with t-test. The results confirm the histological damage that occurred in the gonads of Faunus ater collected from the two rivers. The gonadal damage of female Faunus ater from both rivers was found not to be significantly different, observed by the number of developed and damaged oocytes. It was also found that the gonads of male Faunus ater collected from Bale Riverl, have higher quantity of spermatogenic cells, in which they experience greater necrosis than the ones from Reuleng River.
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