During the Fourth WHO Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health held in Budapest, 52 European countries adopted „The WHO Children’s Environment and Health Action Plan“. The general objective of the plan is to reduce the harmful effect of the degraded environment on children’s health. According to the children’s health action plan, access to clean drinking water and adequate sanitation should be ensured to all European children at the latest by 2015. Greater attention should be paid to physical activity to prevent child obesity. The action plan also requires decreasing the number of traffic accidents involving children mainly by means of preventive measures such as speed limits near child care institutions, etc. Indoor and outdoor air was also an important issue on the agenda, considering that the material of furniture and other furnishings currently used in child care institutions is likely to worsen the health of children suffering from asthma and other similar diseases. It has been planned that certain guidelines will be established for materials used in furniture production in order to make indoor air safer and thus reduce and prevent asthma and other respiratory diseases. To improve the quality of ambient air, the conference called upon the car industry to improve the filters of diesel engines so that they would catch particulate matter more efficiently. In addition to the above, the ministers announced that legal acts should be adopted to regulate and minimise the exposure of children and pregnant women to hazardous chemicals. Each country, including Estonia, assumed the obligation to develop a children’s environment and health action plan corresponding to local conditions based on the pan-European action plan by the year 2007. Estonia was represented at the Budapest Conference held at the end of June by Külvar Mand, assistant minister of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Olavi Tammemäe, assistant minister of the Ministry of the Environment. To follow the tradition, the next conference will be held in five years, but a mid-term appraisal of the fulfilment of the action plan adopted at the last conference will take place in 2007. Further information: |
