China's migrant workers threatened by occupational diseases

China's migrant workers are at the most threat of contracting work-related diseases, China Daily reported on Friday.

The Daily quoted officials from the State Administration of Work Safety as saying that the reason for the high figure was because of their poor working conditions.

The total number of Chinese suffering from work-related accidents is on the rise every year, particularly among younger workers, said the authority.

About 200 million Chinese people are believed to be at risk of contracting occupational disease, and most work in small-town industrial enterprises, the newspaper said.

Qin Nainian, a farmer of Lixing Village in Mashan County of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, had to quit his job because of "black lung disease," or pneumoconiosis, after nine years of working in a gold mine in south China's Hainan Province.

"I often fell acute pain in my chest and can't perform any hard physical work," Qin was quoted as saying.

Statistics show that the number of patients suffering pneumoconiosis in China stands at 580,000, of which 140,000 have already died since China established an occupational disease reporting system in the 1950s.

All of society needed to be involved in the prevention and treatment of occupational diseases, said Ge Xianmin, a veteran occupational disease prevention expert, adding the government should also play a major role.

As part of its efforts to decrease work-related diseases, the General Administration of Work Safety is working to draw up related regulations, said the newspaper.

Source: China Daily