May 2, 2018//-A staggering study released by the World Health Organization (WHO) has revealed that poor air quality causes seven million deaths every year across the world.
It painted grotesque picture that more than 90 per cent of the global population is breathing in high levels of pollutants. Greater percentage of these deaths occur in low or middle-income countries, mainly in Asia and Africa.
The WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus added: “Air pollution threatens us all, but the poorest and most marginalized people bear the brunt of the burden.”
“This is a very dramatic problem that we are facing,” Maria Neira, the Head of the WHO’s Department of Public Health and Environment, told reporters in a conference call.
Dangerous particulate matter can cause diseases like strokes, heart disease, lung cancer and respiratory infections such as pneumonia, she lamented, if you start suffering breathing disease symptoms you may need to contact a professional for an Indoor Air Quality Testing
WHO’s study, which examined health-hazardous levels of both outdoor and household air pollution also revealed that more than 40 percent of the global population still does not have access to clean cooking fuels and technologies in their homes.
It continued: “The use of dirty cooking fuel, like burning charcoal, is a major source of household air pollution, which is estimated to cause some 3.8 million premature deaths each year”.
Furthermore, the report indicated that access to clean fuels was increasing in every region, but warned “improvements are not even keeping pace with population growth in many parts of the world”, especially sub-Saharan Africa.
The newly data from the UN health body however showed that every corner of the globe is dealing with air pollution, although the problem is far worse in poorer countries.
African Eye Report
