BY CHIKA OKEKE, Abuja
The Environmental Health Council of Nigeria (EHCON) has concluded plans to deploy 70,000 Environmental Public Health Officers (EPHOs) nationwide to monitor mandatory emission testing for generators and heavy-duty vehicles, as well as phased restrictions on highly polluting engines.
Registrar/Chief Executive Officer of EHCON, San. Yakubu Mohammed Baba disclosed this on Monday while addressing the media on alarming public health threat associated with air pollution in Nigeria.
The mandatory emission testing is part of the council’s strategy to strengthen environmental health surveillance and address environment-related diseases from Greenhouse Gas (GhGs) emissions in the interest of public health and national development.
Baba insisted that the declaration of GhG emissions as public health emergency aligned with the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Tinubu in strengthening environmental public health governance and protecting citizens from preventable health risks.
Emergency Response
The EHCON boss announced the activation of the National Emergency Response Initiative on Environmental Public Health Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions (NERI-EPHIGGEL).
He added: "The initiative will be implemented in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Environment, National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), National Council on Climate Change (NCCC), and other relevant Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs), including the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), State Ministries of Environment, Environmental Protection Agencies, and Local Government Environmental Health Departments.
"Key emergency measures include intensified regulatory inspections of high-emission facilities and transport corridors, mandatory environmental public health compliance audits, sanctions for non-compliance under the 2024 Environmental Health Practice Regulations, and the introduction of emission-reduction technologies."
The registrar assured that the emergency response is expected to reduce pollution-related morbidity and mortality, improve air quality, strengthen environmental public health governance, and enhance national resilience to environmental health threat.
Leading Deaths Annually
According to World Health Organisation, air pollution accounts for 7 million premature deaths annually, making it a leading risk factor for diseases like stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, and respiratory illnesses.
Baba warned that air pollution-related illnesses currently poses long-term public health threat than the COVID-19 pandemic.
He lamented that Nigeria is facing a convergence of critical risk factors such as rising preventable deaths from pollution-induced illnesses, excessive and unregulated reliance on combustion engines, weak emission controls in high-risk sector, escalating healthcare cost and loss of productive human capital.
Baba cautioned that the failure of government to tackle air pollution decisively would overwhelm the healthcare system and significantly undermine national development goals.
The registrar hinted that many Nigerians suffering from air pollution-related illnesses had neither smoked nor consumed alcohol, yet are increasingly diagnosed with chronic and acute respiratory infections, lung and other environmentally induced cancers, cardiovascular diseases, and systemic inflammatory conditions.
He stated that climate change-driven increase in dust and particulate matter worsened the already dicey situation.
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