Lake Victoria connects the East African nations of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. We present here a review of the scientific literature on biodiversity and contaminants (pesticides, heavy metals) in fish from Lake Victoria on Jinja, Uganda. The review was performed using PubMed and PMC databases at the National Library of Medicine (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/). Preliminary results will be presented.1-12 Very limited information was found about chemical contaminants in fish of Lake Victoria in Uganda. The most common fish found in Lake Victoria, Uganda include, among others: Nile perch (Lates nilotocus), Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), dagaa (Rastrineobola argentea), catfish (Xenoclarias eupogon), elephant-snout fish (Mormyrus kannume), Nila killfish (Micropanchax loati), marbled lungfish (Protopterus aethiopicus) and cichlid fish (Haplochromis thereuterion).
Most of the publications were about pesticides and metals in Nile perch, Lates niloticus. For example, Ogwok et al. (2009)6 analyzed pesticide residues and heavy metals in oil extracted from the belly flaps of varied sizes of Nile perch caught from Lake Victoria (Uganda). They found that the total residual concentration of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, endosulfan, hexachlorocyclohexane, hexachlorobenzene, heptachlor, chlordane, endrin, aldrin and chlorofenvinphos increased significantly (p < 0.05) with fish size. Mercury and lead were detected in most samples while arsenic and cadmium were below detection limits. Nile perch may accumulate significant amount of chemical contaminants, but levels of contaminants in Nile perch oil were within limits considered acceptable by the German Food Law for human consumption.6
We will address the long-term health effects of low levels of pesticides and metals on human health12, particularly considering the contamination by heavy metals in silver fish (Rastreneobola argentea) caught from Lakes Kyoga and Victoria, Uganda8, the mercury concentrations in muscle, bellyfat and liver from Oreochromis niloticus and Lates niloticus consumed in Lake Albert fishing communities in Uganda9, and mercury levels in Nile perch fillets in processing industries in Uganda.11 The sociocultural factors associated with fish consumption in the fishing communities need to be addressed by the tree countries.10
Considering the new “Community Action For Fresh Water (CAFW) initiative between Rotary International (RI) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to restore, protect, and sustain freshwater ecosystems (www.rotary.org/en/rotary-unep-partnership), we plan to build collaborations with Rotaracts and Rotary Clubs from the three countries connecting Lake Victoria (Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania) to obtain preliminary results and prepare a global grant to perform studies on conservation of biodiversity and pollution in Lake Victoria to address food safety and food security issues.