Despite a sharp decline in toxic paints from 88 per cent to 41 per cent over the last three years, dangerous lead paints for home use are still being sold across Pakistan, experts said at a press conference on Thursday as they discussed new national findings warning that millions of children remain exposed to lead poison that causes irreversible brain damage and long term economic losses.
The event, held at a local hotel in Karachi, brought together senior officials from the Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA), Lead Exposure Elimination Project and Pakistan Coating Association.
They presented new data showing progress in eliminating toxic pigments from household paints but stressed that unsafe products continued to circulate widely. Officials said Pakistan still faced one of the most severe childhood lead poisoning crises in the world. They said at least 47 million children were affected and the exposure destroyed cognitive development, lowered IQ, harmed learning and focus, and contributed to hypertension and heart disease later in life.
Experts said the economic cost of early lead exposure was enormous. They estimated annual losses of around 38 billion dollars due to reduced future earnings of children harmed by lead in their early years.
Abid Hasan, Country Head Pakistan for the Lead Exposure Elimination Project, said toxic household paint remained a silent danger in millions of homes. He added that children exposed to lead suffered permanent harm that limited their educational outcomes and weakened their long-term potential.
PSQCA officials said they were enforcing the national limit of 90 parts per million for lead content and issuing notices and penalties to non-compliant manufacturers. They said the remaining companies must urgently remove lead-containing raw materials and adopt safer formulations.
Dr Sayeda Zia Batool, PSQCA director general, said the decline in toxic paint sales showed that progress was possible when standards were followed. She urged all paint makers to comply with mandatory regulations and ensure that no child was exposed to harmful pigments.
Lead Exposure Elimination Project representatives said they would continue offering no cost technical assistance to support companies in reformulating their products. Program Manager Hassam Ullah Khattak said the partnership between regulators and industry had already delivered important improvements but the job was far from complete.
The Pakistan Coating Association said both large companies and small enterprises were removing lead from their products. Chairman Iftikhar Bashir Chaudhry said the paint industry understood its responsibility and that safer paints were technically and commercially viable.
The study presented at the event tested 119 cans of solvent-based household paints purchased from markets in Karachi, Sukkur, Quetta, Peshawar, Multan, Lahore, Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Additional cans were collected from shops where reformulated paints had already been distributed.
Samples were analysed at laboratories in Lahore, Karachi and the United States to measure total lead content. Researchers said yellow and red oil based paints remained the highest risk because of commonly used pigments and warned that no brand could be assumed safe unless all colours are fully reformulated.
Experts at the press conference said Pakistan had made important progress but remained far from eliminating lead paint from homes. They warned that without stronger enforcement, regular testing and faster reformulation by manufacturers, millions of children would continue to face preventable brain damage for generations to come.
