The World Health Organization told governments on Thursday to move faster on preventing lead exposure, warning that 815 million children worldwide have blood lead levels at or above five micrograms per deciliter, the point at which its guidelines call for a review of how a child is being exposed. The agency also estimated that lead exposure contributes to more than 3.5 million deaths globally every year.
Bruce Gordon, who heads the WHO’s environment department, told reporters that over one in three children worldwide sit above the action level and that a child can be exposed without any obvious symptoms. Lead lodges in the kidneys, brain, liver and bones once it enters the body, the agency said, and it is especially dangerous for children because their brains and nervous systems are still developing. Gordon said “awareness alone is not enough,” and he called for effective policy-making and enforcement, with countries moving upstream to remove lead from products and environments before it reaches a child’s bloodstream.
The WHO ranks lead among 10 chemicals of major public health concern, alongside arsenic, asbestos, mercury and highly hazardous pesticides. It lists a long set of exposure routes: paint, cookware, cosmetics, spices, informal recycling and industrial contamination. The agency stated plainly that no known safe level of lead exposure exists, and that even relatively low exposure can cause irreversible harm. In 2021, it recommended identifying and eliminating the source of contamination for any person with a blood lead level of at least five micrograms per deciliter, and it pointed out that 3.5 micrograms can be associated with reduced intelligence, behavioral disorders and learning difficulties in children.
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The numbers deserve a careful reading. The 3.5 million death figure refers to cardiovascular-related deaths attributed to lead by the US-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, and the same institute, The Eastern Updates found, estimated that lead exposure cost more than 71 million years of healthy life in 2023. Older WHO material put annual deaths at about one million, and one analysis cited by development researchers puts the figure at 5.5 million, so the toll depends heavily on how cardiovascular effects are counted. The 815 million figure for children has stayed stable across WHO and UNICEF-linked estimates, which have long placed it at roughly 800 million.
The policy machinery behind Thursday’s call is already running. Member states charged the WHO with building a global action plan on lead mitigation, requested through a World Health Assembly resolution adopted in 2025, and countries are due to see it at their next annual assembly in May. A draft of the plan, released for consultation, focuses on four areas: reducing exposure, strengthening evidence, improving health-system capacity and building leadership and coordination. In May of this year, on the margins of the 79th World Health Assembly in Geneva, the agency gave a first look at a technical package on lead poisoning prevention, scheduled for release in 2027, and invited governments to comment on it as it is developed.
The WHO also announced work on the testing gap, which is where much of the problem hides. One policy analysis noted that most low- and middle-income countries have no studies measuring children’s blood lead levels, which means national estimates often rest on modeling rather than measurement. The agency said it is enhancing laboratory capacity for blood lead level testing in nine countries: Brazil, India, Nepal, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa and Tanzania. Six of the nine are in Africa. The agency lists mining, smelting and the recycling of lead-acid batteries among the industrial sources that expose children, particularly in developing economies.
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Adults are not spared. Lead exposure raises the risk of high blood pressure, cardiovascular problems and kidney damage in later life, the agency said, and young children and women of childbearing age are the groups most vulnerable to its effects on the developing nervous system. Lead is a naturally occurring toxic metal found in the Earth’s crust, and its widespread use has produced extensive environmental contamination, human exposure and significant health problems, the agency said. Governments have already recognized lead as a pressing public health concern, which is why they tasked the agency with the action plan.
Paint is the most direct place where regulation could bite. Lead in household paint is a well-documented source of childhood exposure, and the WHO said fewer than half of countries had legally binding controls on lead in paint, according to its latest assessment.
