This is how air pollution harms children's health | health

Air pollution is the new tobacco and the simple act of breathing kills 7 million people a year and damages billions more, said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Organization of Health (WHO) in an interview with The Guardian newspaper on Saturday.

It is estimated that 91% of the world's population is exposed to air pollution, which is the greatest risk to environmental health in the world, causing 4.2 million deaths each year due to poor outdoor air and 3.8 million to the exposure of households to dirty cooking stoves.

In India, pollution kills 1.1 million people, according to the Global Air 2018 report, which links air pollutants to 10.6% of all deaths in the country. In addition to asthma, other respiratory diseases, pollution leads to strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart disease, lung infections and tracheal, bronchial and lung cancers.

For children, the risk begins in the uterus and continues throughout the neonatal period and early childhood, which has led the WHO to highlight air pollution. and children's health in a new report released Monday, two days before the global announcement. first World Conference on Pollution and Health, from 30 October to 29 November.

With the rapid deterioration of air quality in northern India, which led to Diwali, the PM2.5 level, a fine dust that causes and exacerbates respiratory and pulmonary diseases, was in Delhi 16 times higher than the national standard and 40 times higher. exceeds the international safety limits of 20 micrograms per cubic meter for PM10 and 10 micrograms per cubic meter for PM2.5. Delhi has 38 real-time stations and 10 manual stations, compared to a handful in other major metros where there is insufficient data.

Exposure of the mother to polluted air has been associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes, including premature birth, low birth weight, abnormal birth length and head circumference, and short stature. gestational age. Children's developing lungs are the most likely to get hurt because they breathe faster, are more active, spend more time outdoors and have a developing immune system.

Children exposed to pollution have a lower maximum lung functional capacity and are more susceptible to infections and toxic effects of air pollutants in adulthood, resulting in further exacerbations of chronic lung diseases such as Asthma and cystic fibrosis, as well as an increase in the number of hospitalizations.

Smog, the toxic fog produced when solar dust, carbon particles, harmful gases and ozone react chemically in the presence of sunlight prevents ultraviolet B rays from reaching the Earth's surface, resulting in a disability vitamin D children. Human skin needs a coverage of 7-dehydrocholesterol in cholecalciferol (vitamin D3) when exposed to ultraviolet B radiation from the sun, needed to strengthen bones and prevent bone loss (osteoporosis) later in life.

Pollution lowers memory and IQ, with infants being the most vulnerable to toxic chemicals in the first 1,000 days after birth, when brain development occurs to a large extent. It also causes psychological and behavioral problems, developmental delays at the age of three, and a four point drop in IQ at age five, according to a UNICEF report released in 2017.

Even exposure to traffic noise is related to behavioral problems. Sleeping in rooms exposed to the noise of night-time traffic makes children hyperactive, sleepless and raises their blood pressure.

Regulations that reduce pollution and exposure to toxins from the air can counteract some of the adverse effects. The reduction of sulfur dioxide in the former East Germany following the reunification of Germany in 1990 resulted in an improvement of lung function and a decrease in respiratory diseases such as bronchitis, sinusitis and frequent colds in children. Studies conducted in the United States also showed that the lung function of children who were passing through states where the air was better and that the number of hospitalizations related to respiratory disorders, such as l? asthma, pneumonia, bronchitis and respiratory infections decreased.

First publication: Oct. 28, 2018 11:47 IST