CHARLESTON, W.Va. –Regional Epidemiologist for central West Virginia Daniel Barker says children between the ages of one and five are required to have their blood lead levels tested twice in the state of West Virginia, however in Kanawha County less than 50% of children have only been tested once.

That’s what the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department, in conjunction with the WV Department of Human/Health Services and Kanawha County WIC Program, was trying to amend when they provided free lead testing at the Valley Health Kanawha County WIC center in North Charleston Wednesday.

Barker said that since, so few children haven’t been tested, they don’t have a lot of data on if this is an issue within the county.

“This is part of trying to fix that problem, so that we can get a better sense, is there a bigger issue that we need to look at, is there not a bigger issue and we can have more peace of mind, and if there’s a bigger issue what can we do to fix that,” he said.

However, he did say that he believes that the number is so low for children in the Kanawha County area because it isn’t readily available for children despite the state requiring it.

“It seems not a whole lot of people specifically do blood lead level testing, and it’s not really prioritized in the way vaccines and other things really are, but it’s still really important especially to your child’s development,” Barker said.

Emily Gonzalez, a mother who had her daughter tested Wednesday, said that she didn’t know about lead and the effects it can have on children until they approached her while she was waiting for her child’s appointment.

“Well, we already had an appointment scheduled and they came over and kind of told us about it and we decided to because better safe than sorry,” Gonzalez said.

Exposure to lead can come from many different places, including lead paint chips, toys, cosmetics, lead pipes, candy from other countries and even coal miners who may bring in lead particulates from their job site.

Barker said that the main concern they have are the houses built in the state before 1979 because those houses were painted with lead-paint.

Currently there are between 60%-69% houses that were built before that year.

He said that these numbers could cause issues like it has in other states.

“In other states that has contributed to really high blood lead levels in children,” Barker said. “That’s why I suspect that and if that is an issue I would like to be able to find that because if we follow the trends of other states than that’s likely what will happen.”

He also said that houses built before 1960, which is between 40%-49% in the state, is also a concern.

Barker said that it’s important to get tested because some symptoms can appear to be normal symptoms.

“Some of these symptoms can sometimes appear a little bit innocuous at first, because you have symptoms like headache, loss of appetite, learning difficulties which could be attributable to other things and you won’t know until you test your kid for lead if that is specifically the issue,” he said.

Long-term and more severe effects include damage to the brain, kidneys, and nervous system, slow growth and development, learning and behavior problems, hearing and speech problems. It can also increase the risk of miscarriage or stillbirth or low-birth weight.

Barker said that if a child’s blood lead levels come back over five micrograms per deciliter than they flag that sample for the state. The state then declares an environmental lead inspection around the home to determine where the lead exposure is coming from.

The KCHD offers walk-in or appointments for blood lead level testing at their location on Lee Street in Charleston.