Addressing health risks of chemicals

The WHO Western Pacific Regional Office is involved in various collaborative projects to address and raise awareness about chemical safety issues.

The first meeting of the Conference of the Parties on the Minamata Convention on Mercury was held in Geneva from 24 to 29 September 2017. The Minamata Convention, which was signed in 2013 and has since been ratified by 94 parties as of June 2018, is a global treaty that calls for the phase-out of mercury and mercury-added products in an effort to protect human health and the environment. The Regional Office has been working with Country Offices in the Region to ratify and implement the Convention by organizing workshops and providing other forms of support.

In 2017, WHO supported Hokkaido University’s Center of Environmental and Health Sciences in the creation of a leaflet about dioxins. This leaflet, aimed at the general public, allows readers to understand the sources, current issues, and health risks of this class of chemicals.