SRIREP Project held a medical seminar as an online Zoom Webinar entitled “3rd Japan – ASEAN Medical Seminar on Human Health Impact of Heavy Metals” on 31st October 2020 Saturday at 10:30 – 11:50 (Myanmar Local Time). The emphasized and highlighted topic of the seminar is “General Information on Mercury and its Pollution”.

The seminar was organized by Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN), Japan, and SRIREP project and supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), Japan and Environmental Conservation Department (ECD) of Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation (MONREC), Myanmar.

First and foremost, Deputy Director-General U Min Maw, Environmental Conservation Department (ECD) of Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation (MONREC), Myanmar gave the opening speech to the audience regarding mercury intoxication and current issues, the roles of ECD for handling the use of mercury matters in Myanmar.

Professor Masayuki Sakakibara, Project Leader of SRIREP Project, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN) presented “What is Mercury?” and Mr. Myo Han Htun, Research Associated of SRIREP Project presented “The Use of Mercury in Daily Life” respectively. Then, Dr. Win Thiri Kyaw explained about “Mercury Free Society Networks” and its visions, missions, and planning to the audiences. Participants actively questioned, answered, and discussed the current issues regarding mercury pollution and mercury pollution control, mercury-intoxication, mercury-containing products with the panelists.

During the discussion, panelists responded to the questions asked by the attendees such as how to reduce mercury from the environment and decrease human exposure, the suggestion of fish consumption in pregnant mothers, how to analyze the organic mercury, methyl mercury in food products, safety handling of mercury in the laboratory, an alternative method of mercury usage in local ASGM and how to promote the wellbeing of the mining community.

147 persons registered to attend the webinar and 109 persons from various governmental departments such as Environmental Conservation Department (ECD), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), etc. and the representatives from local organizations such as Network Activities Group (NAG) and We Women Foundation Myanmar attended the seminar. The number of the attendees who joined the seminar for over 50 minutes is 95, which is 87% of the total attendees, and 55% of them were the officials and staff of ECD.

The seminar was conducted in bilingual: English and Myanmar languages due to the majority of audiences are from the general public.

The 3rd Japan – ASEAN medical seminar on the human health impact of heavy metals will be held as Zoom Video Webinar on October 31, 2020, at 10:30 – 11:50 (Myanmar Local Time) / 13:00 – 14:20 (Japan Local Time). The purposes of the seminar are to share the information on General Information of Mercury and its Pollution to the general public.