Halving road deaths needs global efforts

With around five million people dying annually due to road traffic crashes, violence, drowning, suicide, and similar other mishaps, international experts, rights activists and government officials from around 110 countries called for coordinated and stronger actions of world leaders to combat them.

They came up with the call on the second day of a high-level international conference titled "Safety 2016- the 12th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion" at Tampere city in Finland yesterday. 

Traffic crashes take the largest chunk of injury-related deaths claiming over 1.2 million lives annually across the world, they said, adding that there needed global commitment for attaining the target to halve the deaths caused by traffic crashes within 2020.

Beyond deaths, tens of millions of people suffer injuries that lead to hospitalisation, emergency department visits, and treatment. Many are left with temporary or permanent disabilities; violence and injuries (not only road crash, rather all other mishaps) are responsible for an estimated six percent of the total number of people living with disabilities globally.

The participants disseminated the data referring to different researches and studies by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in the last couple of years. 

Violence and injuries affect all age groups, but have a particular impact on young people and those in their prime working age from 15-29 years. Three injury-related causes are among the top five causes of death -- road traffic injuries, suicide, and homicide. The four-day conference under the theme "From Research to Implementation" mainly aims to exchange information and experience for reducing injuries and violence which are considered as major challenges to achieve the targets of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Around 1,200 delegates are participating in the conference organised by the Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare and co-sponsored by WHO.

Bangladesh is among the few low-and-middle income countries where traffic crashes are frequent. Although WHO has not revealed any latest data, its report last year claimed that 21,000 people die in Bangladesh annually, while the government puts the average figure at 2,700.

Talking to The Daily Star, several WHO experts said enforcing laws, checking reckless driving, implementing vehicle and safety equipment standards, building public awareness and improving emergency trauma care are the prime pre-requisites to minimise traffic injuries and deaths in Bangladesh.

However, no official of the road transport and bridges ministry of Bangladesh joined the programme, but there are two officials from the Directorate General of Health Services.

In his speech, Dr Etienne Krug, director of the WHO Department for the Management of Non-communicable Diseases, Disability, Violence and Injury Prevention, said, 'We need to step up action to avoid this unnecessary suffering of millions of families every year.”

"The conference provides an opportunity for the world's leading violence and injury prevention researchers, practitioners and advocates to discuss and share successful strategies which if scaled up across countries could do much to prevent violence and injuries and save lives," he said.

Talking to journalists, he citied that reckless driving, poor quality of road and poor emergency care mainly contribute to road crashes that is very dominant in low-and-middle income countries.

Talking to The Daily Star, Dr Anne Lounamaa, head of the Welfare and Health Promotion Unit of Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare, said, “Our main purpose of the conference is to develop new ideas, new ways to address injury and violence and to change the situation globally.”

Meleckidzedeck Khayesi, technical officer of WHO, said of the total traffic crashes victims, 22 percent are pedestrians; so special attention should be given to ensure pedestrians' safety.