In the year 2017, around 12 lakh Indians died due to air pollution revealed a report released on April 3. The study comes at a time when trees are being arbitrarily axed to erect concrete blocks across the world, thus snapping us back to reality and forcing us to take air pollution more seriously.
According to the State Of Global Air report 2019, produced by the Boston-based Health Effects Institute (HEI), long-term exposure to outdoor and indoor air pollution (PM 2.5) caused strokes, diabetes, heart attack, lung cancer, and chronic lung disease thus killing almost 50 lakh people worldwide of which China and India reported 12 lakh deaths each in 2017. Other three countries on the top five were Pakistan with 1.28 lakh deaths, Indonesia with 1.24 lakh and Bangladesh with 1.23 lakh deaths caused due to air pollution.
Life Expectancy Dropped
The report brought a new aspect in comparison to older air pollution report as it showed that due to air pollution the life expectancy has dropped by 1 year and 8 months on an average worldwide. The report stressing on the newly found figures stated – “That a child born today will die 20 months sooner, on average, than would be expected in the absence of air pollution”. The report further said that deaths caused due to better-known risk factors such as alcohol use, malnutrition, physical inactivity, traffic accidents, and malaria are less when compared to air pollution deaths.
Air Pollution Kills More People Than Smoking
The report also unveiled that exposure to PM2.5 (Particulate Matter) is now the third highest cause of death among all health risks in India. It stated that in the country, more people die due to air pollution than smoking. However, Robert O’Keefe, Vice President of Health Effects Institute, said India has certainly taken various steps to curb the air pollution such as Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana and the new National Clean Air Programme.
Also Read: Why Air Pollution Debate Needs To Shift From Delhi To Other Cities?
