Libreville, February 13, 2024 (AGP) – Acaccompanied by his colleague from the Environment, Arcadie Svetlana Minguengui-Ndomba and the representative of the World Health Organization (WHO), the Minister of Health, Professor Adrien Mougougou opened, this Tuesday, February 13, 2024, in Libreville, a workshop aimed at implementing actions to popularize the regulations relating to the import, export and use of products containing mercury throughout the national territory, noted the AGP.
For two days, stakeholders from the Health and Environment sectors gathered in Libreville to reflect on and implement a strategy aimed at eliminating products made from mercury in the Gabonese Republic.
“In its article 16 entitled health aspect, the Minamata Convention requires signatory States, including Gabon, to adopt scientific health directives on reducing the risks of exposure to mercury and its compounds. These directives also concern the education of the general public on the dangers of using these products,” indicated the Minister of Health, Professor Adrien Mougougou in his introductory remarks.
According to a national survey by the Ministry of Health, supported by the WHO, “around 30% of health structures, nationally, still use mercury thermometers. Among dentists, a significant number still use old dental amalgams containing mercury. Additionally, some skin lightening products contain mercury,” the survey results revealed.
“We must detoxify the environment and rid it of toxic products. This is why we have conventions. We must therefore remove mercury from the medical environment and reduce our dependence on medicines and pharmaceutical items made from it,” declared the Minister of the Environment, Acardie Svetlana Minguengui-Ndomba-Nzoma.
It is in this spirit that the Ministry of Health has therefore committed itself alongside the World Health Organization to achieve a certain number of objectives which it has declined: “The withdrawal of the distribution circuit of equipment and devices containing mercury. Provisions have also been made for the controlled use of products containing mercury, such as amalgam for the treatment of cavities in adolescents and women of childbearing age, blood pressure monitors and mercury thermometers,” informed the member. of the government.
He also instructed the National Medicines Agency to continue, without reservation, the effective conduct of the technical activities of the project on the elimination of lightening products. The aim is to lead the administrations concerned (the police, the Ministry of Commerce, customs, the Directorate General for Competition, NGOs, manufacturers and resellers, etc.) to master all the texts prohibiting the use of products containing mercury, for better awareness and convincing results.
LNM/CBO/FSS
Similar articles
2024-02-13 19:49:22