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The World Health Organisation (WHO) will set
up here its second centre of excellence for occupational health
in India in collaboration with Chennai-based Sri Ramachandra
University (SRU).
The 'WHO Collaborating Centre for Research
and Training in Occupational Health' was inaugurated by Union
Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss on the SRU campus.
It is a second such centre in India after the
National Institute of Occupational Health at Ahmedabad, and
third in South East Asia after the Ministry of Public Health,
Bangkok, WHO Occupational Health Group head, Dr Gerry Eijkemans,
said.
According to a WHO estimate, about 85 per
cent of workers across the world, a majority of them in South
East Asia, are not having any access to occupational health
service, she said.
Stressing the need for political will and
policy framework to address workers' occupational health
problems, Eijkemans said WHO had set up 70 centres of excellence
across the world in collaboration with institutions which had
the capacity to conduct research and translate the knowledge
into action.
Prof Kalpana Balakrishnan, director of WHO
Collaborating Centre, SRU, said to fulfil the growing demand of
human resources with advanced training in this discipline, the
centre would launch the first Master of Public Health and MD
programmes in occupational and environmental health in close
collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research.
She said the centre would also engage in
systematic job exposure profiling and create state and
national-level profiles for occupational hazards for select
sectors.
The centre would also provide technical
assistance to set up industry-level cluster centres that would
provide routine preventive occupational health and safety and
outreach services to a large network of local industries, she
added.
Balakrishnan said the Centre would also
develop a package of Basic Occupational Health Services to
assist primary health care physicians to recognise, evaluate and
manage occupational diseases. (Agencies)
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