Health minister calls for review of vehicle and road safety standards; 20,000 Iranians die annually in road accidents

Health Minister criticized the gap between drafting safety standards and implementing them in the auto industry, saying: "If the current standards were actually implemented, we would see airbags deploying in accidents and a significant drop in the number of injuries and road deaths."

Criticizing the existing gap between the formulation of safety standards and the implementation stage in the automobile industry, the Minister of Health said: "If the current standards are implemented in the implementation stage, we would have seen the opening of airbags in accidents and a significant reduction in the number of road casualties and injuries."

Dr. Mohammad Reza Zafarqandi, while congratulating experts, researchers and manufacturers on this day, said: The fact is that the standard debate is one of the main indicators of developed societies and it is impossible for a balanced and all-round development to occur without strong standardization.

He stated: About 25 to 30 percent of issues related to people's health are within the health field, and 75 percent of the factors affecting it are outside this field, and the correction and monitoring of these factors require broad and strong coordination between the health system and the National Standards Organization.

Zafarqandi added: According to recent reports, 700,000 children in the world die every year due to air pollution, a large part of which is caused by the lack of necessary standards in fuel and the use of diesel fuel. An issue that directly affects the health of communities; On the other hand, in our country, about 20,000 young people die every year on the roads due to accidents, which requires a detailed examination of the standards of cars and roads. Because if all the airbags and air bags were opened on time, we would not have witnessed this number of road casualties and the loss of lives of our citizens.

He emphasized: In addition, accidents caused by working in non-standard environments are one of the major challenges of the health system, the cost and damages of which are imposed on the health and treatment field, and the question is raised whether the standard is a fixed category or variable, and considering that food and agricultural products are constantly subject to change due to toxins and antibiotics, the standards should also be continuously reviewed and upgraded; In this direction, the communication between universities and scientific centers with the standard organization is necessary to manage emerging challenges.

In the end, the Minister of Health noted: In times of war or mass accidents, we make the best decision to save the lives of the injured with the available facilities through triage, and in the field of standards, it should be determined to what extent the welfare and health of the people come before other matters, and how to have a powerful standard that puts health at the forefront of the work and that people's health is always the main and definite priority of this organization.