Citation

Amegashie J. Proc. Road Saf. Four Continents Conf. 2005; 13: 11p.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, Conference Sponsor)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Recent accident data estimates that worldwide about one million people die in road accidents each year and up to 50 million people are injured. It is further estimated that over 80 per cent of these are in the developing and emerging nations of Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Middle East. It is established that although some regions in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East have low-level of vehicle ownership the rate of road accidents and fatalities they experience is totally disproportionate to the vehicle ownership in countries in those regions. The global cost of road accidents in developing and emerging nations of the world is at least US$70 billion each year. In the developing world, about 70 million in patient days are taken up in hospitals each year with road accident victims. It is also estimated that about 40% of hospital beds in teaching hospitals of developing countries are occupied by accident victims. This no doubt is an intolerable burden on scarce medical resources.