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Insurance and social protection expert Musa Al-Subaihi called for campaigns to raise awareness and educate about occupational diseases in the Social Security Law.

Al-Subaihi said, through his Facebook account, that occupational disease is considered one of the forms of work injuries according to the Social Security Law. Infection with any of the occupational diseases mentioned in Table No. 1 attached to the Insurance Law (the list of occupational diseases), which number (58) occupational diseases, entitles the injured insured to rights. And insurance benefits similar to the rights of the insured who is exposed to a work accident and is approved as a work injury.

He explained that it is possible to contract occupational diseases without knowing the person participating in the guarantee and without being diagnosed with them, due to the lack of periodic specialized medical examinations, and due to the lack of doctors specializing in occupational medicine, which deprives these workers of their rights.

Al-Subaihi stressed, “We need continuous educational awareness campaigns about the occupational diseases specified in the Social Security Law, and we also need to adhere to a health protocol that obliges sectors that include work environments that expose workers to occupational diseases to conduct specialized periodic medical examinations to detect any infection with any of these diseases.” .

He also demanded that the medical committees in the insurance institution scrutinize the cases presented to them as natural diseases, while in reality they are occupational diseases contracted by insured workers through their practice of certain jobs and professions in certain work environments..!

The insurance expert mentioned examples of occupational diseases:

1) Anthrax disease: This disease affects workers in the field of processing wool, hair, raw hides and most jobs that require contact with infected animals.

2) Dust pneumoconiosis: It affects workers who are exposed to newly born dust of silica or materials that contain silica at a rate of more than “5%”, such as working in mines, quarries, stone carving, in the manufacture of stone sharpeners, or in polishing metals with sand. In addition to asbestos lung disease, which affects those exposed to asbestos dust. Or cotton dust pneumoconiosis, which affects people who are exposed to cotton dust.

3) Maltese fever: Workers in slaughterhouses and in the rearing of cows and livestock are infected with this disease.