2025-01-01-世界卫生组织-Environmental_Health_Cameroon_2024_country_profile_3页_174kb

Cameroon Health and Environment Scorecard Summary

The Cameroon Health and Environment Scorecard evaluates key areas such as air pollution, water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), climate change, biodiversity, chemicals, radiation, occupational health, and health care facilities, with numerous indicators showing gaps and insufficient data across all domains.

• Air Pollution: Cameroon has legal standards for PM2.5 but does not comply with WHO guidelines (annual mean 56 μg/m³ vs. 5 μg/m³). This contributes to health impacts like stroke and ischaemic heart disease. Policies exist, but implementation is limited.

• Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH):

  • Approx. 78% of the urban population and over 50% of the rural population lack safe drinking water or sanitation.
  • WASH coverage is insufficient, with inadequate personal hygiene and unsafe drinking water leading to high potential for waterborne diseases like diarrhoea.
  • Data indicates insufficient progress, with less than 50% meeting basic needs for sanitation and implementation plans.

• Climate Change: Adaptation efforts are underway, with a national plan referenced, but high emissions scenarios suggest vulnerability. Warming spell days are projected to increase, and policy coherence for climate resilience lacks sufficient data and integration into health systems.

• Biodiversity: While a strategy post-COP15 is submitted, protected areas decreased by -1%, with forest loss of -10% or -21,600 km² between 1990-2020. This undermines conservation targets, with insufficient data for comprehensive assessment.

• Chemicals: High blood lead levels in children (<8 μg/dL) cause poisonings, and there is no legal limit for lead paint. IHR capacity for chemical events is low (score of 20/100), and no national regulations for mercury or other chemicals exist, hindering prevention.

• Radiation: IHR capacity for radiation emergencies is poor (score below 40%), with insufficient data on radon exposure and lack of standards. This poses risks to public health with inadequate emergency protocols.

• Occupational Health: High rates of occupational disease-related deaths (13 per 100,000 adults) lack national occupational health and safety policies, despite ratifying some conventions. Job exposure risks remain unaddressed.

• Health Care Facilities: Many facilities lack basic water, sanitation, hygiene, and electricity supplies. Insufficient environmental sustainability assessments and no plans for climate-resilient or green health systems indicate weak infrastructure.

Overall, the scorecard highlights critical weaknesses in Cameroon's ability to mitigate health risks from environmental and health policy failures, with pervasive data gaps requiring urgent policy improvements and resource allocation.