Hanoi Times – The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the Ministry of Health have drafted the nation’s first-ever national program on environment-related human health.
The ministries estimated that the program, to run from 2009-2015, will need funding of VND4,000bil (US$250mil), to be siphoned from the State Budget and Vietnamese and foreign assistance sources. The program should be submitted to the Government for approval early next year.
The plan will carry out studies on health, sickness and injuries caused by chemicals and micro-organisms in the environment, genetic developments and pollution. Other factors include social change, safety at work, natural disasters and climate change.
The program suggests nearly 30 large-scale projects to deal with environmental issues. Among these are plans to design education programs in schools, strengthen the legal system on environment-affected health and boost environment-affected health research agencies.
At a meeting on Tuesday held by the two ministries to collect suggestions for the draft program, most participants agreed that the plan was especially important for Vietnam during its period of industrialisation and modernisation.
Some experts said the programme should register the difference in environmental health for urban and rural residents in different ecological regions. It should also draw up specific solutions for individual regions of the country.
According to a report by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, many of the factors affecting environmental health were very serious.
In industrial zones and handicraft production villages, for example, the ratio of dust in the air is 2-3 times higher than the ministry’s permitted norm. Around 40 mil people nationwide don’t have access to clean water and living space in industrial and urban areas is becoming more and more limited.
The Ministry of Natural Resource and Environment has run a national environment gauging network since 1994 but the network only monitored and forecast risks without studying the effects on human health.
