- In principle, the entire increase is corona-related, says Ulrika Scholander, section manager at the Swedish Work Environment Authority.
An occupational disease is a disease that has arisen during working hours or as a result of work, for example if an employee becomes infected at his workplace.
According to preliminary figures from the Swedish Work Environment Authority, 8,596 notifications have been received by the authority regarding occupational diseases during the first six months of 2020. An increase of 60 percent compared with the same period last year.
Healthcare workers most vulnerable
6,300 reports concern women - an increase of 85 percent, while the corresponding figure for men has increased by 16 percent, to 2,296 reports.
The big difference is due to the fact that most women work in the most vulnerable industries to the coronavirus, such as health and care.
For that industry group, 4,930 applications have been received, an increase of 219 percent.
Anette Kjellström is an assistant nurse at a nursing home in Southern Stockholm.
There, both residents and staff have become ill in covid-19.
- When we got it ourselves, then I realized that I was working on something that I myself could die from.
I can pass this on to my loved ones.
It was very hard, she says.
Limited access to protective equipment
According to the trade union Kommunal, limited access to protective equipment was the main reason for the spread of infection.
- We have had to wage a rock-hard fight to get the simplest mouth guards for elderly care and then we also see that it is the occupational groups that are affected much harder than other occupations.
I think that - quite frankly - is too damn, says Tobias Baudin, union chairman at Kommunal.
Anette Kjellström is also critical of the lack of protective equipment.
- We do not yet know much about this infection, it is insidious.
Then we must assume that it exists all the time and then we must have protective equipment at all times.
Then we save both our old lives and our own lives.