NEW DELHI T: he number of job-related accidents and illnesses, which annually claim more than two million lives, is on the rise in developing countries due to rapid industrialisation, says the International Labour Organisation. The figures were released on Thursday to mark the World Day for Safety and Health at Work.

A new assessment of workplace accidents and illness indicates that the risk of occupational disease has become by far the most prevalent danger faced by people at their jobs, accounting for 1.7 million annual work-related deaths and outpacing fatal accidents by four to one.

Loss in GDP

The ILO also found that each year there were some 268 million non-fatal workplace accidents, due to which the victims missed at least three days of work, as well as 160 million new cases of work-related illness. In a previous study, the ILO discovered that workplace accidents and illnesses were responsible for the loss of about four per cent of the world's GDP in compensation and absence from work. The most common workplace illnesses are cancer from exposure to hazardous substances, musculoskeletal diseases, respiratory diseases, hearing loss, circulatory diseases and communicable diseases caused by exposure to pathogens.

In many industrialised countries, where the number of deaths from work-related accidents has been falling, deaths from occupational disease, notably asbestosis, is on the rise. Globally, asbestos alone is responsible for 100,000 occupational deaths a year. In the agricultural sector, which employs half the world's workforce and is predominant in most underdeveloped countries, the use of pesticides causes about 70,000 poison deaths each year and at least seven million cases of acute and long-term non-fatal illnesses.

New data show that in the construction industry at least 60,000 fatal accidents occur each year worldwide or about one death every 10 minutes. About 17 per cent of all fatal accidents occur in this sector, while construction workers also face a number of health risks, including exposure to asbestos-laden dusts, silica and hazardous chemicals.

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