Killer air

With clouds of smog hovering over parts of Pakistan, it is clear that the damage that air pollution does to public health in Pakistan is significant. One must wonder if providing numbers of how much damage it does would do much to shift government inaction on the matter. One can only try. The latest report on the ‘State of Global Air’ – released by the US-based organisation Health Effects Institute (HEI) – has put Pakistan second in the list of countries with the highest mortality rate due to air pollution. Our neighbours, India and China, are tied for first place in a list that no one should be proud to be on. A total of 1.2 million die each year of air pollution in China and India. The numbers from India suggest that more people die of air pollution than smoking. In Pakistan, 128,000 deaths can be attributed to air pollution. India and Pakistan both rank higher than China in terms of household air pollution, which means the air is not safe in over half of the households in our countries. Overall, the report finds air pollution to be the fifth leading cause of early death worldwide.

There is little doubt that improving air quality alone would result in a much better and longer life for Pakistanis. Not only would everyday diseases related to the air tract be lower, average life spans would improve by around one year. Air pollution is considered the third leading risk factor for Type 2 diabetes deaths in the world. In the case of children in South Asia, air pollution cuts their lives short by 30 months, since young children absorb more pollutants which impair their development. All parents like to claim that they care for the long life of their children, but it is hard to believe this in face of the inaction over air pollution. Cumulated together, the report concludes that 147 million years of healthy life were lost in 2017 due to air pollution. The report concludes that just breathing air in our cities is equivalent to being a heavy smoker. This is a serious issue. And the fact is that those in power know this. Warnings have been delivered over and over again. And it does not need a research group sitting in the US to warn that drastic action needs to be taken. We will need to wait to see if it mobilises our government into action.