Lagos State Government has been tasked to devise policies and programmes that would enable many using unclean cooking stoves to transition to clean cooking stoves, as no fewer than 4.3 million premature deaths are recorded yearly from the use of kerosene and charcoal-powered stoves.

Some researchers and experts made the call yesterday, during a Stakeholders’ sensitisation meeting on ‘Clean-fuel, clean cookstove study’, a research collaborative from NYU Grossman School of Medicine (NYUGSoM), the University of Chicago, and the Lagos State University College of Medicine (LASUCOM).

While providing the project overview, the Implementing Principal Investigator, Prof. Ololade Wright, stated that household air pollution caused by the use of solid fuels was a critical public health issue, resulting in 4.3 million premature deaths yearly, stating that about 90 million households in Nigeria still cook with solid fuels.

She added that the project was committed to driving the adoption of clean, high-efficiency cookstoves through community mobilisation, effectively reducing HAP and preventing hypertension in peri-urban communities of Lagos.

In his remarks, the Project’s Principal Investigator, Prof. Gbenga Ogedengbe, noted that research had revealed that the use of firewood results in cognitive decline.

Similarly, the General Manager of the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA), Dr. Babatunde Ajayi, said the household air pollution had a negative impact not only on health but also on climate change. (The Guardian)