Air pollution has been a “big worry” for many years, and this year’s coronavirus epidemic has been “adding to the worse” for India. A new study shows that 1.7 million Indians died of air pollution in 2019, accounting for 18 percent of the deaths throughout the year.
The Indian Express reported on the 22nd that the report entitled India’s National Burden of Disease Initiative was published in the famous British academic journal The Lancet Planet Health.
The article said that air pollution had led to an 115% increase in India’s mortality rate between 1990 and 2019.
Christopher Murray, one of the authors of the paper and director of the Institute of Health Metrology and Evaluation at the University of Washington, called for the Indian government to take measures to deal with this “serious public health threat” as soon as possible.
The report also mentioned that India’s gross domestic product (GDP) also lost a huge loss in 2019 due to the high incidence of diseases and even premature deaths of Indian people due to severe air pollution, which is about 2.6 trillion rupees (about $35B), which is about India’s 2020-202. 4 times the budget for healthcare in fiscal year.
The Times of India reported that last month, the air pollution index of New Delhi, the capital of India, repeatedly “exploded”, and local residents complained. Everyone said, “The haze is too heavy to see anything, and it has exceeded the limit of patience.” It feels like the eyes and nose are burning outside.” According to Reuters, many families with asthma and other diseases began to bring their own oxygen cylinders and pulse oximeters at home in October, fearing that severe air pollution will make them more vulnerable to the novel coronavirus.
A New Delhi man with asthma said he had just recovered from COVID-19 and had difficulty breathing the dirty air in the city. He said, “I can neither walk nor leave home. Even if I try to go out, breathing can be difficult.
At present, India has more than 10 million confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus and more than 146,000 deaths, and the epidemic has been aggravated by air pollution.
Public health experts at Harvard University believe that severe air pollution can cause people to suffer from chronic pneumonia, and such patients are less resistant to the novel coronavirus.
