I'm Steve Ember with the VOA special English Development Report.

The World Health Organization says, half of the world's population burns wood, coal, animal waste or other solid fuels. More than 3,000 million people use solid fuels to cook and to heat and light their homes. The people who burn these fuels often breathe in large amount of smoke. This can lead to pneumonia and other diseases. Children are especially at risk.

The WHO, the United Nation's Health Agency, recently published a report about the dangers of solid fuels. The report says these fuels are the cause of 1.5 million deaths each year.

Two out of the three deaths happen in Southeast Asia and in Africa, South of the Sahara Desert. Among the victims are estimated 800,000 children and 500,000 women, experts say indoor pollution also kills 200,000 men each year.

The World Health Organization says there has been little progress since 1990 in supplying more people with modern cooking fuels. The report discusses what it will take to cut the use of solid fuels in half by 2015. To do that, almost 500,000 people everyday would need to gain modern energy services. But experts say gains in health and the productivity will more than pay for the costs required.

The WHO estimates a yearly cost of 13,000 million dollars to supply liquified petroleum gas to half the people now using solid fuels. It says that investment would result in yearly economic gains of 91,000 million dollars. Other kinds of fuel would cost more.

Eva Refuse wrote the WHO report. She says there are simple solutions that could help people in the short term, these include cleaner burning soils, and better systems to clear the air in homes. She says longer term solutions include change to the cleaner cooking fuels such as liquified petroleum gas, bio gas, ethonal or plant oils. Miss R says users would pay most of the investment cost but some public investment would be needed to start the process.

The report is called fuel for life, household energy and help.

pneumonia : 肺炎