SCIENTIST. HUMANITARIAN. Saviour of a community. Brother. Friend. Dr. Mitko Vutchkov, senior research fellow of the International Centre for Environmental and Nuclear Sciences (ICENS) is a man whose humanity shines just as brilliantly as his academic record.
Today you are being honoured for your quiet reserve as well as the content of your character and your humanity.
We commend you on your commitment, academic excellence and, most of all, for the quality of your heart.
Dr. Vutchkov has been affiliated to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, Austria, travelling the world on expert missions. One of these missions took him to Jamaica in 1992. His interest in lead research soon took him to Kintyre, a small rural St. Andrew community, nestled in a valley just a few miles east of Papine. His original intention was a scientific study to examine the occurrence of the powerful neurotoxin, lead, in the Jamaican environment, following upon the baseline data presented in ICENS' publication, The Geochemical Atlas of Jamaica. Instead, he began a remarkable journey of self-discovery that would save and improve the lives of countless children.
Dr. Vutchkov and his team found high concentrations of the toxic heavy metal in the soil of Kintyre and the research team discovered that the Kintyre Basic School was actually located in the abandoned building that housed, in the last century, a mill used for crushing and concentrating lead ore. In fact, the school yard and environs were found to be grossly contaminated by ore and lead-rich mine waste. The children's blood samples were sent overseas to a US laboratory and the results surprised Dr. Vutchkov and the ICENS team -- acceptable blood-lead levels, using US standards, are within 10 microgram per decilitre (mg/dl), the blood-lead levels of the basic school children were way over 60 mg/dl.
We applaud you for your quick thinking, your dazzling initiative and sense of community. You quickly formulated a cost-effective, three-pronged strategy to protect the children and prevent further recontamination with lead was identified in 1995: lead encapsulation, nutritional enhancement and lead-safe education for the community.
We salute you for the vision you showed in seeking to mobilise the support of others to realise your humanitarian vision. In the end, the lead waste in the school environment was isolated using marl and cement and the children, through the assistance of the Lions Club, were provided with regular supplies of food rich in protein, calcium and iron to counter the lead poisoning. A public education programme promoting improved cleanliness, sanitation and the dangers of lead poisoning was also implemented.
Today, the intervention of paving the lead waste areas has effectively addressed lead toxicity in Kintyre. At present, there is no open, obvious area of lead in the community. But Dr. Vutchkov did not stop there. Oh no! He is now working on a third phase of this project -- the islandwide study of lead toxicity in children.
For these reasons, we present you with pleasure, the 2002 Gleaner Honour Award of Excellence in the science and technology category. We are proud to call you brother, we are proud to call you friend.
