Forty-one percent of the children in Sudan are malnourished and underweight, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Mohamed Eisa, a physicist at the Sudan University of Science & Technology, would like to change this statistic, and he believes that particle accelerators can help.
Maps of sulphur and calcium in a hair cross-section for a typical Sudanese (left) and South African (right). Sulphur appears to be distributed similarly.
By using the powerful beams of a proton accelerator, Eisa is analyzing the elemental composition of hard human tissues, such as kidney stones, hair and teeth from all regions in Sudan. His plan is to investigate and determine the levels of calcium, phosphate, iron and other elements in the samples and use the information to create a database that records nutritional deficiencies in the country.
“Sudan is a country of civil war for a long time, and this results in many problems, such as poverty and lack of main services like clean water and medical care,” Eisa says. “This is reflected on the lives of citizens in those affected areas, and I would like to have more focus on these problems to help the development and stability of those affected areas.”
Eisa started using accelerators to analyze samples about ten years ago when he was a graduate student at the iThemba Laboratory for Accelerator-Based Science and Cape Town University in South Africa. He uses a specialized technique called a nuclear microprobe.
In the accelerator, each sample gets exposed to a low-energy proton beam. The protons cause the sample to emit X-rays with wavelengths specific to a particular element. Eisa collects the information to analyze the composition of each sample and note deficiencies, such as iron.
“There is a deficiency in iron in most of the Sudanese regions due to diet, as stated by the Food and Agriculture Organization,” he says. “Fifty percent of all the children are anemic particularly at the war regions and rural areas.”
By pinpointing the specific regions of the country where children are lacking iron, for example, Eisa hopes the database will give officials the information necessary to provide nutrients to the areas that need them most.
“The results show a marked difference between the regions due to differences in food availability, climate as well as regional food habits in Sudan,” he says.
Eisa hopes to complete the study in 2012.
The following organizations have supported his work: iThemba LABS and the iThemba Collaboration in South Africa, Sudan University of Science and Technology, and the Third World Academy of Science – United Nations Educational, Scientific Cultural Organization (TWAS-UNESCO).
