Environmental Illness Cases Increasing

Children’s health is being seriously threatened by environmental pollution. The Korean Academy of Pediatric Allergy and Respiratory Disease has found that 24.9 percent of primary school students in Korea suffered atopic dermatitis in 2000, the most common environmental disease in children. The figure has grown by two to three times over the last 30 years.

With regards to asthma, 15.7 percent of children aged 6 to 12 were found to have asthma in 2003, and 18.6 percent of children aged 0 to 4 were found to have asthma in 2005.

Environmental diseases are difficult to cure and require a long-term treatment. The characteristics of the diseases make not only the patients themselves but also their families suffer physically and mentally.

There are several factors that cause environmental diseases in children. Major causes include indoor air pollution at homes, schools, and care facilities; chemicals included in foods; toxic materials like paints in recreation space for children-like playgrounds.

Choi Heung-jin at the Environmental Health Policy division of the Ministry of Environment said, “We will declare this year as the first year for protecting health from environmental pollution and carry out an extensive research on environmental diseases in children over the next 10 years.”