The UN has begun a new school campaign to try to increase awareness among children that too much exposure to the sun may cause them health problems in adult life.
"We know that by reducing overexposure of children and adolescents to the sun, we can substantially reduce the risk of contracting skin cancers, cataracts and other conditions which might only appear much later in life," said Dr Lee Jong-wook, director-general of the World Health Organization.
WHO has teamed up with the UN Environment Programme in the Intersun Project - an information package that will initially be distributed to health and education ministries.
The UN health agency would like the risks of ultraviolet rays to be included on the school curriculum and for more countries to follow the example of Australia and the United States, which have effective education programmes.
WHO says that the risk of skin cancer and eye cataracts has increased with the depletion of the earth's protective ozone layer. It says that each year there are between two and three million new cases of non-malignant melanomas and more than 130,000 new melanoma skin cancer cases worldwide.
WHO estimates that cataracts have blinded 12-15 million people worldwide and says that up to 20 per cent of these may have been caused by sun exposure, especially in countries close to the equator such as India and Pakistan.
AP