Natural radioactivity in sand used in thermal therapy at the Red Sea Coast

The development of climatotherapy in Safaga opens the field of medical tourism in Egypt, in order to detect any harmful radiation that would affect the patients during treatment and is becoming important economic resource. Studies and survey of natural radiation and radioactivity in upper Egypt conducted since 1990, included monitoring of the concentration of natural radionuclides in environmental samples. The results of the study reveals that, for all sand samples, the mean activity concentration of 40K (618+/-122-548+/-82 Bq kg(-1)) are much higher than that of both 226Ra (25.3+/-14-20.6+/-10 Bq kg(-1)) and 232Th (21.4+/-10-22.4+/-10 Bq kg(-1)). Different radiation hazard indices were calculated, the radiation dose to which workers are subjected is not negligible (26.5-50.9 nGy h(-1)), although depending on the inhalation of dust.