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Ecology and health in Africa. "Respect for the environment is not considering material, nature, or animal more important than man. Rather, it means not using nature selfishly for personal interests .…More
Ecology and health in Africa.

"Respect for the environment is not considering material, nature, or animal more important than man. Rather, it means not using nature selfishly for personal interests ... Neither should the poor be forgotten...".
These words of Pope Benedict XVI, pronounced for the last World Day of Peace, can be applied without doubt to the African continent, where, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), environmental factors affecting health cause 23% of deaths that occur each year.
The creation of a synergism in Africa's response to the ecological crisis connected with health was the objective of the first Ministerial Conference on health and the environment, held in Libreville, Gabon, from August 26 to 29.
The meeting was attended by 80 ministers of health and the environment of 53 African states together with specialists from the WHO and other UN organisations.
At the end of the work African ministers signed the "Declaration of Libreville", which commits African states to establish "a strategic alliance between health and the environment."
The Declaration, recalling what has already been stated by the Pope, calls for uniting the ecology of the environment with the so-called human ecology.