PESHAWAR, Aug 1: Unsafe mining methods and handling of asbestos products poses serious threat to human health and environment, doctors and environmentalists say.

They said that the mineral's fibres exposed workers associated with industries using it and local populations living in areas where its mines or industries exposed people to various deadly lung and skin diseases.

Akbar Ali, a young government official, is unable to hide his grief as he narrates the sufferings of his father who died in 2001 as a result of mesothelioma, an incurable lung cancer, caused by asbestos exposure.

"My father, Malik Qadir Khan, lived in Mardan and worked in a tobacco company in Akora Khattak. When he turned 55, he suddenly started complaining of difficulty in breathing," Mr Akbar recalled.

He said that his problem became chronic in a very short period of time and subsequent X-ray reports showed that water had accumulated in his lungs. Initially, Mr Akbar said, he feared that his father was suffering from tuberculosis, adding that clinical tests showed he suffered from mesothelioma, a disease deadlier than TB.

He said that his father, apparently a healthy looking man, became bed-ridden and died within two years after being diagnosed of the disease, at the age of 57. He suffered a lot of misery and pain, Akbar Ali recounted.

"In medical terms, mesothelioma is a lung fibrosis and the statistical likelihood of contracting the disease because of exposure to asbestos is 99 percent," Dr Arshad Javed, dean of the Post-Graduate Medical Institute of the Lady Reading Hospital, said. He is also the president of the Pakistan Chest Society.

"Over the past years, the rising number of patients suffering from mesothelioma has alarmed doctors at the LRH institute's pulmonary unit," he said. "During the past few years, we have diagnosed more than 500 cases of this fatal disease in the NWFP, which is a matter of concern for the people as well as for the government, the doctor observed.

Most of the patients, he said, belonged to the northern districts of the NWFP, including Charsadda, Mardan, Malakand and the Mohmand Agency. The Pakistan Chest Society, he said, conducted a survey of patients, of whom 52 were men and 28 were women. None of them had a clear history of what is termed as occupational exposure to asbestos.

A follow-up to the study was not satisfactory as contact with most of the patients was lost, but eight of them were reported dead from the same disease by the end of first year, he said.

"Mesothelioma is an incurable disease and the patients admitted at hospitals are given medicines only to provide them temporary relief," said Dr Mubashir, registrar of the Chest Ward at the LRH.

Patients suffering from mesothelioma could survive between 18 months to two years, he said. Presently, he added, a number of patients suspected to be suffering from this disease were being admitted to the LRH, adding that their medical tests were underway. - APP