New Delhi: In a court decision two days ago, the world came to know of the first case in which air pollution was responsible for the death of someone. It is being talked about nine-year-old Ella, nine years after her death, a London court found air pollution to be the cause of her death. In other words, there is no longer any opinion that pollution is fatal. And it is not that the problem is there only in London.
Recent research suggests that even though chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD) and bronchial asthma are common diseases in India, the impact of COPD on the insurance burden on GDP in India has doubled during the 1990s to the next 20 years. The main reason for this rapid change is atmospheric and internal air pollution. The Central Pollution Control Board recently claimed that Delhi’s air was worse in November this year than in 2019. These factors and the breath-related epidemic are jointly advocated for immediate policy attention to protect public health.
Climate Trends held a webinar on Saturday to discuss a recent research on COPD and its policy implications. The research has been carried out in collaboration with the Department of Health Research, University College of Medical Sciences, University of Delhi, National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) and Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Delhi, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
In the webinar, Dr. Rakesh Kumar, Director, NEERI, VP Singh, Scientist, Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and DDG of ICMR, Dr. Saginik Dey, Professor at IIT Delhi’s Center for Atmospheric Sciences and Environmental Journalist Ms. Jayashree Naandi of Hindustan Times Participated The webinar was conducted by Ms. Aarti Khosla, Director of Climate Trends.
In the webinar, Dr. Arun Sharma, Director-Professor, University College of Medical Sciences, University of Delhi, presented this research. The purpose of this research is to assess the burden of COPD on Delhi National Capital Region (NCT), understand the spatial epidemiology of COPD, assess risk factors of COPD in NCT of Delhi and in terms of air pollution among Delhi residents. Individual risk has to be estimated.
Dr. Sharma quoted the research report as saying that chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD) and bronchial asthma are the most common respiratory diseases. In 2015, COPD affected 104.7 million men and 69.7 million women due to COPD. At the same time, from 1990 to 2015 the spread of COPD has also increased by 44.2 percent. In the year 2017, 32 million people died due to COPD, and it was the third most common cause of deaths.
Looking at its economic effects in India, there were 28.1 million cases in the year 1990, which in 2016 was 55.3. According to an estimate by the Global Burden of Diseases in India in 1995, COPD cost $ 5394 million. At the same time, it almost doubled to $ 10664 million in 2015.
According to research, air pollution has emerged as the most notable risk factor in the last few years. Air pollution is responsible for the rapid spread of COPD. Smoking has been considered the most common factor in COPD risk factors. Three billion people are exposed to smoke from burning biomass fuel, while 1.01 billion people are exposed to tobacco smoke. In addition, atmospheric air pollution, indoor air pollution, crop dust, mine dust and serious respiratory infections are also major risk factors for COPD.
As far as the appropriateness of this study is concerned, it is to be noted that the number of population-based studies in India is very less and no such study has been revealed during the last 10 years. Not a single population based study was done for Delhi NCT.
Dr. Sharma said that COPD is directly related to air pollution. According to 68 percent of COPD patients, they work at sites where the level of air pollution is high. In addition, 45 percent of patients work in areas where the level of air pollution falls in the category of ‘dangerous’. In addition, 70 percent of the patients reported that they work in areas with excess dust.
64 percent of the patients reported that they do not smoke, while the percentage of patients who smoke is only 17.5. This shows that the effect of indirect smoking on people is increasing more.
Dr. Rakesh Kumar, Director, NEERI, while giving his views in the webinar, said that this study will help in creating new scales for policy makers of India. He said that it is very difficult when we want to collect data from different people. We have many sources which are different from other countries. Studies conducted in Delhi suggest that six to seven types of fuel are used here, ranging from kerosene to litter and cow dung, which also have varying pollutants.
VP Singh, a scientist from the Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and DDG of ICMR, said that such studies are very important. It shows how polluting elements are causing harm to human health. In Delhi, 15-20 years ago, diesel buses and vans were provided with CNG. It was later discovered that CNG excreted benzene gas. Pollution levels have risen very rapidly during this period. It has to be paid attention to what is the cost of development. It is even more worrying that pollution indexes in small towns are similar to Delhi.
Saganik Day – This study tells us that we are going through a paradigm shift in estimating the connectivity of pollution. We just have to get out of the old practice of mere exposure assessment. Things will get better with other such studies.
He said that today we need a hybrid monitoring approach. Someone who works in the IT sector will obviously work in a closed area. It is very difficult to measure the level of pollution inside. We need to find a way of integrated assessment of 24-hour exposure. We have a very limited number of means of measuring internal pollution. We have to bridge this kind of data gap.
According to the study presented by Dr. Sharma, there is a risk of exposure from a 30-minute journey. The issue of air pollution was taken seriously only because it posed a challenge to health. Most of the studies that have been done so far are data that have been taken from elsewhere, but the location issues are different. They also include malnutrition. Air pollution presents many challenges including respiratory diseases as well as heart diseases, mental illnesses and premature births.