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| In a paper presented early this month in Paris, France by a team of Kenyan scientists to a Unesco scientific conference dubbed ‘Our Common Future Under Climate Change’, researchers Victor Ongoma, George Otieno and Onyango Augustine Omondi shared the sequence of pollution from Nairobi’s industrial area to other parts of the country. PHOTO| FILE |
Ninety-three percent of the world’s children are breathing polluted air, a World Health Organisation (WHO) report shows.
Across the globe, the report found that 93 percent or more than nine out of 10 of all children, live in environments with air pollution levels above the WHO guidelines.
The report, released on Tuesday, said chest or respiratory tract infections caused by air pollution had killed more than 500,000 children aged under five in 2016.
“Both ambient air pollution (AAP) and household air pollution (HAP) contribute to respiratory tract infections which killed 543,000 children aged under five years in 2016,” said the WHO.
Air pollution is a major environmental health threat.
ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION
According to WHO, children are “uniquely vulnerable to the damaging health effects of air pollution” with data showing has “a vast and terrible impact on child health and survival”.
Even more disturbing was the UN body’s assessment of children’s deaths in relation to environmental degradation.
“More than one in every four deaths of children under five years is directly or indirectly related to environmental risks,” reads the report published on the WHO’s website.
WHO’s findings cast a dark shadow over global efforts to safeguard the health of children in the wake of increasing levels of air pollution.
“AAP or outdoor pollution alone imposes enormous costs on the global economy, amounting to more than USD 5 trillion in total welfare losses in 2013,” said the WHO document.
The WHO also attributed seven million premature deaths every year to the pollution problem.
“Exposure to fine particles in both the ambient environment and in the household causes about seven million premature deaths each year,” the report said.
The report summarises the latest scientific data on the links between exposure to air pollution and records its negative health effects in children.
COLLECTIVE ACTION
Study findings are intended to provide information that will motivate individual and collective action by health care professionals to prevent damage to children’s health from exposure to air pollution.
“The evidence is clear. Air pollution has a devastating impact on children’s health,” said the WHO.
The global health body noted that the air pollution menace was being addressed but lamented the scant attention paid to its effects on children’s health.
Although air pollution is a global problem, the burden of disease attributable to particulate matter in air is heaviest in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), particularly in the WHO African, South-East Asia, Eastern Mediterranean and Western Pacific regions.
Countries in these regions, especially in Africa, have the highest levels of exposure to house air pollution or indoor pollution due to the widespread use of polluting fuels and technologies for basic daily needs.
These fuels are used for important domestic tasks such as cooking, heating and lighting.
WHO noted the significant role that poverty played in magnifying the risks posed by pollution.
“Poverty is connected with high exposure to environmental health risks. It can also compound the damaging health effects of air pollution, by limiting access to information, treatment and other health care resources,” said the report.