By Raj JUGERNAUTH

It was in mid-June that the World Health Organisation (WHO) released a report, which pointed out that an average of 25 Mauritians die each week due to the bad quality of our environment. If those who made the study are right, it would mean that 1,300 Mauritians are killed each year by pollution, dangerous working environment, UV rays, exposition to excess noise, agricultural hazards and climate change.

At the ministry of Environment, this report seems not to have provoked any reaction. It is also true that public opinion has not been moved by that report, which has gone unnoticed in the eyes of NGOs concerned with environmental protection.

The minister for Environmental protection, Anil Bachoo, seems to be very sceptical about the figure of 25 deaths per week. But he nevertheless says that, compared to other countries where the WHO has made such studies, Mauritius is rated amongst those where death linked to environmental factors are low. He goes on to say that, at his ministry, there is no report linking pollution and death.

Scandalous and inadmissible! Anyone who has worked in hospitals in the 70s, for example, would surely be in a position to inform the minister of some disquieting facts. Had he asked, he would have been informed, for example, that nebulizers were quite unknown in our hospitals and dispensaries in the 60s, 70s and early 80s. Nebulizers are now prescribed almost daily to new asthma victims in our hospitals. Pollution-related asthma is now a far too common factor and death related to asthmatic conditions in young patients is not rare.

Yet, no studies has yet been carried out on those asthmatic patients, the region they come from, their immediate environment and the working environment of those who are developing asthma at adult age. Minister Bachoo does not lie when he says that there is no report at his ministry linking deaths to pollution. It?s high time that he corrects the situation. The WHO representative in Mauritius, Krishnanand Bissoonauthsingh called, after the publication of the report, for a reaction and a brainstorming on the matter. Nothing has been done yet. Could we have expected any reaction from the present minister for Environment?

It?s a pity that environmental protection is not a priority in Mauritius. It will remain so until the minister himself falls victim to pollution-related diseases, says a paediatrician who can no longer bear to see young children and new-born brought to him in asthma fits almost every week.