Tobacco farmers, harvesters and cultivators who work with tobacco leaves have been known to develop green tobacco sickness.
Green tobacco sickness is a form of acute nicotine poisoning and is caused by nicotine being absorbed through the skin from wet green tobacco plants.
Harvesters and cultivators who get green tobacco sickness illness develop headaches, dizziness, nausea, vomiting and can suffer from seizures.
They suffer significant discomfort and eventually become unproductive.The challenge with green tobacco sickness is that it has similar symptoms to people who have pesticide exposure or malaria.
Due to the similarities, its diagnosis is often misdiagnosed among practitioners unfamiliar with the conditions.
Despite global studies in some of the major tobacco producing countries across the world including India, Japan, Italy, Poland, Korea, and the United States, there is still little data on this illness in sub-Saharan Africa.
In Zambia, for example there is no evidence documenting green tobacco sickness.
But Masauso Phiri hopes to change this.
Phiri will be conducting a pilot study that determines the levels of cotinine in farmers and farmworkers.
The levels of cotinine will indicate nicotine poisoning and in turn the prevalence of green tobacco sickness.His pilot study will be conducted in Nkeyema District of the Western Province of Zambia.
The study will be three-fold. Farmers will answer a questionnaire and provide a urine sample which reveals the cotinine levels in their bodies.
High concentrations of cotinine is linked to nicotine poisoning and the presence of green tobacco sickness.In one part he will determine the prevalence of green tobacco sickness among tobacco harvesters using clinical symptoms. In the second he will determine the levels of cotinine in urine of farmers handling green tobacco leaves.
And in the third he assess how much health workers in the district know about nicotine poisoning and green tobacco sickness.
He will be conducting his study in the Nkeyema district of the Western Province of Zambia.
Across Zambia there are about 10 000 farmers who grow tobacco. Tobacco is mostly grown by small- to medium-scale farmers in a number of districts in Zambia.
The research will generate information that would lead to the spread of awareness of green tobacco sickness among tobacco farmers and medical personnel. For the latter, awareness would help to reduce the common misdiagnosis of the condition.