A study of Respiratory disorders in rice mill workers of the Mahaboobnagar and to compare with the control group from same district

Abstract

Agricultural respiratory diseases are also an important public health problem and the affected population is large and the respiratory diseases due to exposure to rice mill dust are at least, in theory, preventable globally. Agriculture is overwhelmingly the dominant occupation far eclipsing, mining and service industries and plays a fundamental role in the economy and daily existence of populations of developing countries representing both occupations and life style for entire families. Rice mills subjects the respiratory system to many different exposures such as dusts, bacteria, endotoxins, spores, chemicals etc in work place.A study was designed to find out the airborne microflora of the work environment of rice mills where workers are occupationally exposed to this environmental flora with a special reference to isolation and identification of aflatoxin positive Aspergills strain from the work environment. The study covered altogether three rice mills located at Bawla town in Ahmedabad district (India). Of all the isolates, 27.39 were Aspergillus of which 6.64; were A.flavus. quantitative evaluation showed the maximum number of isolates recovered from work place (p<0.01) when compared to (office).Strains of A. flavus were sub cultured onto various qualitative media for identification of toxigenic strain, but none of the strains showed positive result indicating that all the eight strains were non-toxigenic.