Each year, 3.5 million years of lives are wasted in Iran, of which 900,000 years pertain to driving accidents.

Accidents are the second most common cause of annual deaths in terms of the number of mortalities in Iran, head of the Health Ministry’s Disease Prevention Center, Alireza Moghisi, told ISNA.
“Accidents squander one million years of lives and inflict six million dollars in damages countrywide annually,“ he mentioned.
“Each year, 3.5 million years of lives are wasted in Iran, of which 900,000 years pertain to driving accidents.“
He put the average age of the victims at 35 years, and went on, “Therefore, accidents rank first among other factors as far as the amount of wasted life is concerned.“
In advanced countries like Sweden, Norway or Scandinavian states, fatal traffic incidents are scarce, he said. In return, they suffer from high rates of violence, suicide and homicide.
“For the first time since the establishment of the World Health Organization in 1946 and after the World War II, the organization themed 2004 as the year of efforts to prevent accidents, driving mishaps in particular.
Training programs were devised to empower countries in terms of workforce, as well as garner official and public support. Iran was selected as one of the countries where training programs need to be implemented.
In this line, 20 disease prevention manages from the Iran University of Medical Sciences are going to attend a 25-hour course devised by WHO on March 5-6. The participants would be trained on the best way to approach accidents and the preventive measures to adopt.

Director of the Iran Nursing Registration Board said that a working group had been formed to exclusively deal with ’crisis nursing’.
Ghazanfar Mirzabeigi told ILNA, “The board’s program for the next Iranian year (to start March 21) has placed special emphasis on crisis nursing.“
He insisted that crisis nursing is very crucial in Iran, which is a disaster-prone country.
“Crisis nursing is a procedure akin to medical emergency services. The working group will try to train nurses on details pertaining to aid operations under critical circumstances,“ he elaborated.
Mirzabeigi reiterated that nurses should be fully prepared and efficiently trained to be able to act when disasters hit.
“Crisis nursing is, in fact, active nursing, which means nurses should be actively present under emergency conditions,“ he stated.
“With the formation of the working group, nurses would be among the first rescue teams to help people affected by natural or man-made disasters such as floods, earthquakes, driving mishaps, etc.“
According to Mirzabeigi, nurses in disaster-hit areas usually lose their efficiency due to being traumatized and need to be assisted by backup groups from other regions.

Insured personnel with either 20 consecutive or 25 alternative years of experience in hard and hazardous jobs can retire regardless of their age, IRNA reported.
According to deputy head of Tehran Social Security Organization for insurance affairs, Gholam-Reza Mehrdel, 18,900 people have been retired ever since the Law on Hazardous Jobs was put into practice in October 2001.
“The figure is expected to exceed 20,000 by the yearend (started 20 March 2004),“ he added.
Referring to the retirement age for other professions, he said “The retirement age will decrease from 60 to 50 for men and from 55 to 45 for women, provided they have already paid 30 years of insurance premiums to the Social Security Organization of Iran.“
He further added the minimum age requirement would be removed for personnel who have a 35-year insurance record.
“The insurance record and base salary during the two final years before retirement from which monthly premiums are deducted, are determining factors in fixing the amount of retirement pensions,“ he explained.

A department store sales clerk displays anti-hayfever mask and goggles at TokyoÕs Mitsukoshi department store. (AFP File Photo)

Japanese are bracing for what may be the worst pollen season on record, with millions set for a spring of misery that has researchers and industry racing to help them out, AFP reported.
Streets will soon be awash with people wearing protective face masks, goggles and even pollen-repellent overcoats, with 30 times more cedar and cypress pollens than last year forecast to hit Tokyo from March to May.
The national allergy to pollens will push up state health insurance costs and undermine workplace efficiencies as one in every 10 Japanese fall victim to constant sneezing, watery eyes and runny nose.
Japan’s severe allergy problems are in part a fault of geography, with around 30 percent of a densely populated country covered by trees. The government encouraged the planting of fast-growing trees such as cedars as part of reconstruction after World War II.
This year is supposed to be a particularly severe allergy season because the summer of 2004 was one of the hottest on record, leading to a surge in pollens.
“It is forecast that the amount of pollens could be the highest on record this year nationwide,“ the health ministry said in an emergency notice to regional governments.
“It is feared that people who already have pollen allergies will suffer serious conditions and those who haven’t had such allergies could develop symptoms.“
The ministry urged the public to take defensive measures and consult health professionals early.
The springtime headache has prompted a group of ruling party lawmakers to call for increased government funding for prevention and treatment at one of the world’s most advanced allergy research centers.
The RIKEN Research Center for Allergy and Immunology, based in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, will spend an annual one billion yen ($9.5 million) on development of vaccines for hay fever, skin rashes and other allergies.
The center is aiming to develop vaccines for lowering IgE (Immunoglobulin E), an antibody that causes allergies, within five years, preparing such vaccines for public use within 10 years.
“Stop-gap remedies have been developed by pharmaceutical companies but our mission is to find cures at source,“ said Masaru Taniguchi, director of the center.
“Beyond developing vaccines, we still need to conduct research on how to prevent allergies,“ he said.
As a long-term project, the Forestry Agency has been encouraging planting a new species of low-pollen cedar.
It is expected to take at least two or three decades to overtake existing stocks in 4.5 million hectares, or 18 percent of the nation’s planted forests, an agency official said.
Cedar and cypress forests have grown unchecked because the use of low-priced imported lumber has made it commercially nonviable to log in Japan and building materials other than wood are now more widely used.

A credit of 400 billion rials has been earmarked for promoting educational goals of the Literacy Movement Organization in the 2005-06 budget, deputy head of the
organization for financial and supportive affairs said.
Parviz Kosari told IRNA that another 150 billion rials would be paid to the organization for supplying teaching aids and paper. “The organization will not encounter budgetary shortfalls next year provided the credits are secured in time,“ he said.
He said close to one million adults would be trained in any of the preliminary, complementary, final and fifth grade courses run by the organization.
Kosari added that the organization is currently offering literacy courses in mosques, for workers and armed forces personnel, in local training centers as well as in the form of person-to-person learning courses.
Kosari went on, “The plan dubbed ’Study With Family’ with the help of a 15-volume series has been warmly welcomed by families.“
Only those who are above 10 years and have been deprived of educating at the official schooling system qualify for literacy courses, he said.
Registration for literacy classes can be done twice a year in early spring and early autumn.
Presently about eight million Iranians--less than 14 percent of the population-- are starved of reading, writing and calculating skills.

In a humanitarian gesture, Iranians make cash or in-kind donations for the needy on March 4th, marking the national Benevolence Day. (Photo by Hassan Chapi)

The worldwide trade in illegal drugs sold over the Internet has surged, according to the UN’s drug watchdog.
Dangerous drugs are being sold without prescription in a virtual marketplace that is difficult to control, says the International Narcotics Control Board.
In its annual report, it says that 90 percent of online drug sales take place without a medical prescription.
Legal suppliers were fuelling the trade, it says, by providing unlicensed Internet pharmacies with drugs.
The INCB warn the web is increasingly a source of illicit drugs for children offering access which is not restricted by age.
“The illicit trade over the Internet has been identified as one of the major sources for prescription medicines abused by children and adolescents in certain countries such as the United States,“ it says.
The US, it says, remains the largest market in the world for illegal drugs with 8.2 percent of its population of 293 million people using them.
The most common sales are of mind-altering substances such as amphetamines.
“Billions of [doses of] controlled substances--some of them highly potent drugs such as oxycodone, equivalent to morphine, and fentanyl, which is many times stronger than morphine--are being sold by unlicensed Internet pharmacies.“
The INCB called for better cooperation between governments, international organizations and the pharmaceutical industry.
The report also highlighted that drug abuse and trafficking was a growing problem in many African countries.
It cited a marked increase in the use of intravenous drugs--such as heroin--in eastern and southern Africa and said this could have serious ramifications for the spread of HIV and Aids.
The INCB also said it was worried by Afghanistan’s opium production.
The country now supplies three-quarters of the world’s heroin as well being a major source of cannabis resin.

More than 1,600 organized drug trafficking rings were dismantled during the first three quarters of this year (ending March 20) up by 14 percent over figures from the same period last year.
Secretary general of the Anti-Drug Headquarters, Ali Hashemi, at a recent meeting with Uzbek deputy prime minister and director of the Uzbek National Information and Analytical Center for Drug Control, Kamol Dusmetov, briefed him on Iran’s counter-narcotic efforts during the nine-month period and said, “A monthly average 25 tons of assorted drugs including heroin, morphine, opium and marijuana--adding up to 222 tons--were seized every month.“
The drug haul made in the current year showed an increase of 40 percent compared to 160 tons impounded the previous year, which signifies the reinforcement of police and security operations, he stated.
Hashemi recalled that 320,000 drug traffickers were arrested during the period, of whom more than 10,000 were key dealers and the rest were minor pushers and addicts. “Also in excess of 3,500 foreign nationals were detained on charges of drug running and distribution, showing a rise of 53 percent over last year’s figure (2,300). Islamic Republic of Iran Police involved in more than 940 armed conflicts with the bandits in nine months which left 243 outlaws killed. A total 22,000 surveillance and patrolling operations were carried out in Pakistan and Afghanistan borders during the same period.“
Hashemi noted that 46 anti-drug squad personnel attained in the nine months.
“Also 1,655 weapons were confiscated, up by 14 percent over last year. The facts and figures provide ample evidence that drug lords are gaining increasingly more power in the region and the world,“ he warned.
The official regretted that the mean prices of opium, marijuana, heroin and morphine slumped during this time. “For instance, a kilo of opium was sold for 12.6 million rials last year which declined to 7.28 million rials in the current year. Also the price of morphine declined by 15 percent to 28 million rials per kilo from 33 million rials last year.
“To add insult to injury, dealers have been supplying drugs containing a great deal of impurity for higher profits which claimed 3,250 lives during the first three quarters of this year,“ he said, adding presently 61,000 substances abusers and drug runners are in jails.
“The Islamic Republic has incurred heavy losses for being located on the drug transit route linking Afghanistan to European destinations. There is evidence to suggest that poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has increased steadily in the face of all international and regional anti-drug conferences. This is while instability and insecurity in the country can no longer be claimed as excuses for the increase.“
He insisted that international bodies working to promote human rights ought to adopt measures to rein in the Afghan drug trade.
Hashemi said Iran was among the few countries which fulfilled its promise of making a $500-million donation to Afghanistan, paying an annual $55 million.
A quadruple meeting with representatives from Britain, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran shall be held next year in collaboration with UNDP.
“Given that the smugglers are constantly equipping themselves with more sophisticated systems, we need to exchange know-how and experience with other countries to be able to fight back the rising pressure and put an end to the appalling situation.“
Elaborating on the headquarters’ programs to reduce demand, he recalled that more than 20 million educational brochures and leaflets were published for raising the awareness of young people. Also more than 15,000 hours of TV series and movies were aired by the national broadcaster to enlighten public opinion over the past two years.
“Some 500 state-sponsored and private addiction treatment centers have been set up, providing services to 500,000 people in five years,“ he stated.
“We have supplied junkies with 100,000 free needles this year and have collected 66,000 contaminated ones to protect them against contagious diseases such as AIDS and hepatitis.“