afrol News, 10 July - Lassine Boire, the Director of the National Social Provident Institute (INPS), has disclosed that at least one third of sub-Saharan workers have become victims of contacts with chemical substances at work annually. Of the world's 340,000 chemical substances deaths annually, sub-Saharan workers constitute 100,000.

Boire made the expose at the start of a three-day meeting of experts on occupational hazards and diseases in sub-Saharan Africa in the Malian capital Bamako.

The meeting draws experts from 12 African countries - Benin, Burundi, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Central African Republic, Congo, Mali, Niger, Chad, Togo, Gabon and Senegal - are attending the meeting. Also in attendance are the development partners.

Most of the participants are directors of Social Security Funds, industrial physicians and representatives of professional workers and employers associations are attending the Bamako meeting whose opening ceremony was chaired by Ahmadou Yeri Diop, the Director of Social Security Fund in Senegal.

Its main aims, among others, is to discuss better management of occupational hazards and diseases in sub-Saharan Africa.

Participants are also discussing the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) guidelines on the management systems of security, health and management of industrial diseases.

The Bamako session will make a follow up of a Dakar meeting initiated by the Inter-African Association for the Prevention of Occupational Risks. In this regard, they will discuss the funding, audit, activities and communication campaign strategies.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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