IAEA holds Regional Course on Conditioning and Storage of Disused Radioactive Sources in Nigeria

The International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, in collaboration with the Nigeria Atomic Energy Commission, NAEC, is holding a regional training course on Conditioning and Storage of Categories 3 to 5 Disused, Sealed Radioactive Sources in Nigeria.

The venue is the Centre for Energy Research and Training, CERT, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, northwest Nigeria.

It opened on 24 October and closes on 28 October, 2022.

The training course is hosted by the Federal Government of Nigeria and is addressing the problems of threats to lives and the environment from the radioactive contamination from such sources.

A sealed radioactive source is one in which the radioactive source is sealed/closed/housed in a capsule usually a metal, to prevent escape of the radioactive substance and allow the emission of ionising radiation when not in use.

Categories 3 to 5 are the sources used mainly in hospitals and industries (like in brachytherapy, gauges e.g. Cs-137, industrial radiography e.g. Ir-192, irradiators and medical teletherapy units e.g. Co-60) and are prevalent in Nigeria.

Though still dangerous, they are relatively lower in radioactivity than the more dangerous Categories 1 and 2 sources.

The IAEA has published a safety guide (Safety Guide RS-G-1.9) detailing a risk-based ranking for them.

This Safety Guide provides a risk-based ranking of radioactive sources and practices in five categories:

Category 1 and 2, if not safely or securely managed, would cause permanent injury and death to a person who handled them while Category 3 to 5 would cause (permanent) injury with or without death.

This is essentially a security / hazard rating for sealed radioactive sources, where a category 1 source is the most hazardous and takes lesser time of exposure to cause a fatality while a category 5 source is the least hazardous.

All sources which contain radioactive substances even when spent and no longer in use are dangerous because they still contain traces of radioactivity.

Conditioning the disused sources keeps them safe for handling and storage before they are returned to the manufacturers as a rule under the Nigerian Radioactive Waste Management Regulations, 2006 and their inventory is closed.