Air pollution is a public health emergency as grave as Covid: Dr Soumya Swaminathan

According to an NDTV report, Dr Soumya Swaminathan, former chief scientist of the World Health Organization (WHO), has stated that air pollution is a public health emergency as massive as Covid. It affects early mortality, the probability of developing diabetes, asthma, as well as the brain, lungs, and cardiovascular system. Pollution has impacted almost every organ and part of the body in some form or another. Therefore, it is very essential to treat it like the coronavirus disease (Covid).

Speaking about the differences between the two, Dr Swaminathan stated that Covid was a pandemic spread by a virus that appeared suddenly. There was a large amount of unknown fear regarding it, it was sudden and visible, and it was taking lives right in front of people's eyes. On the other hand, air pollution remains invisible most of the year except winter. We cannot see it, we get used to its smell, and it progresses at a slow pace, but it definitely takes lives.

In an exclusive interview with NDTV, Dr Swaminathan detailed how we are sacrificing the health of an entire generation by continuously ignoring the irreparable damage caused by pollution. Speaking about the impacts on children from the time of pregnancy, she stated that during the early years of life when major physical and mental development takes place, the environment in which we grow up is just as important as nutrition, stimulation, and care.

Explaining particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5), she stated that these are very fine particles, which are about 1/40th the size of a human hair. They can pass through the lungs into the bloodstream and even enter the placenta, thereby affecting the unborn child as well. It affects the mother's blood circulation. Therefore, the child is disadvantaged right at birth. It has been proven that in areas where mothers are exposed to high levels of air pollution, premature babies and low-birth-weight babies are born.

Children's brains develop rapidly in the first three years of life, and since their organs are developing, they breathe faster. Therefore, those who grow up in heavily polluted areas have smaller lungs, Dr Swaminathan added. Diseases caused by prolonged exposure to toxic air are often linked to other causes because there is no way to count them separately. Dr Swaminathan emphasized that there is no death certificate on which air pollution is written, so there is a need for a prompt, coordinated, and scientific response similar to Covid.

In India, the AQI limits are much higher than the limits approved by the WHO.

She previously served as the chief scientist at the WHO.