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Rise in Deaths Due to Environmental Risks

People in the UAE are losing 112,500 healthy years annually because of modifiable environmental risk factors such as unintentional injuries, cardiovascular disease, road traffic injuries and neuropsychiatric disorders, according to WHO’s 2007 preliminary report on the impact of environmental factors on health for
the UAE.

This is WHO’s first-ever global and country-by-country analysis report linking health
and environment.

“The WHO has based this calculation on 25 disability adjusted life years (DALYs) per 1000 capita per year,” said Mazen Malkawi, Technical Officer, Information Exchange, WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean Centre for Environmental Health Activities.

“This loss cannot be measured in humanitarian and social terms, however, economists try to put an economical cost for this just to facilitate the demonstration of the size of the risk,” he said.

“Based on this, the total burden of environmental diseases costs about $2.7 billion annually and is 18 per cent of the total burden,” he added. Globally, this burden ranges from 14-37 per cent.

He explained that unintentional injuries may relate to environment through several factors.

asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.com

• UAE