The National Profile on Asbestos Related Occupational Health in Vietnam
The adverse effect on health has been known very early but only in beginning 20th century the occurrence of deaths of asbestos exposed workers appeared in developed countries which used a lot of asbestos such as: England, Australia, Denmark, Japan etc.
Asbestos issues have been paid attention by Vietnamese Government for many years. Since 1976, asbestosis has been recognized as occupational disease and compensated. However, for many reasons, statistics and update of asbestos data and information are not implemented continuously and systematically. Therefore, setting up the National Profile on Asbestos Related Occupational Health (NPAROH) in Vietnam is essential to facilitate government to have sufficient and accurate data and information to make decision to protect health of workers and community, for today and the future.
NPAROH, a part of the project: “Protection of workers’ health” presided by Health and Environment Management Agency in 2009-2011 is implemented by the National Institute of Labour Protection (NILP) containing 20 sections which are based on guideline of ILO/WHO. It can be summarized as follows:
· Section 1: concepts on asbestos and asbestos use in Vietnam
· Section 2: legal documents related with asbestos
· Section 3: Import of asbestos
· Section 4: import of asbestos containing products
· Section 5: asbestos mining
· Section 6: Production of asbestos containing products
· Section 7: total workforce in asbestos containing materials production
· Section 8: industries having most majority of asbestos- exposed workers
· Section 9: Industries having high potential and number of workers of exposure to asbestos
· Section 10: occupational diseases of workers
· Section 11: asbestosis
· Section 12: Lung cancers
· Section 13: Mesothelioma
· Section 14: Percentage of houses and traffic vehicles containing asbestos
· Section 15: Estimate the number of workers compensated annually for asbestos diseases
· Section 16: asbestos related criteria/standards
· Section 17: inspection
· Section 18: economic losses caused by asbestos diseases
· Section 19: typical researches on asbestos issues in Vietnam
· Section 20: mechanism to collect and update information for NPAROH.
The Asbestos Resource Centre was established in 2010 under NILP administration. This centre is in charge of collecting and disseminating asbestos related information in Vietnam.
Conclusion
NPAROH has been presented at several domestic and oversea conferences and highly appreciated because asbestos issues in Vietnam are collected rather sufficiently and systematically. Vietnam is the first country in the Asian- Pacific region establishing NPAROH. This model must be disseminated so that other countries in the region can learn and follow, especially in countries using a lot of asbestos such as: Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines.
(Source: Pham Van Hai, PhD
National Institute of Labour Protection)
