Record-breaking pollution continues to wreak havoc in Delhi. Today, the air quality index (AQI) remained close to 400, showing a very serious situation. This causes difficulty breathing, coughing and increases the risk of lung-related diseases. However, the government claims it lacks concrete data to prove a direct link between high AQI levels and lung disease. However, contrary to the government’s claims, a report in the Medical Journal of Advanced Research India says that poor air quality reduces lung function. Additionally, The Lancet and ICMR’s 2019 report, “The India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative”, states that around 18% of total deaths in India in 2019 were due to air pollution. This means that air pollution was a cause of death for approximately 1.67 million people. However, the State of Global Air Report 2024 goes even further and claims that air pollution causes 2.1 million deaths in India every year. Not only this, the life expectancy of an average Indian decreases by about 1.70 years due to pollution. This means that even if the government does not have the correct data, it must look at the data from the government agency ICMR. Even more alarming is the report by the University of Chicago, which claims that air pollution reduces the life expectancy of an average Indian by 3.5 years. The life expectancy of people living in Delhi-NCR is decreasing by 7.8 to 10 years. Furthermore, India suffers economic losses of about 1.36% of its GDP due to diseases caused by pollution. Meanwhile, Kirti Vardhan Singh, Minister of State for Environment, claims that they do not have correct data on pollution and lung disease. In contrast, during this Parliament session, on December 3, the Union Health Ministry told the Rajya Sabha that 204,758 cases of respiratory problems were reported between 2022 and 2024 in six major government hospitals in Delhi. What do health experts say? Of these, around 35,000 patients had to be admitted to hospital. According to the ministry, air pollution was the main reason for this. Therefore, Minister of State for Environment Kirti Vardhan Singh may not have his own accurate data, but he may consider the health ministry’s data to be reliable. The team of TV9 Bharatvarsha also spoke to health experts and tried to understand the link between air pollution and lung disease. Click here to learn about today’s air quality index (AQI) Senior radiologist dr. Sandeep Sharma says that pollution gradually damages the lungs. This level of pollution reduces lifespan by 5 to 10 years. Senior physician dr. Neetu Jain says that even healthy people face problems due to pollution. The lungs of the people of Delhi are getting weak. Although Delhi has become a gas chamber, and hospitals are full of respiratory diseases, the government shows no signs of slowing down. The government seems to be trying to reduce pollution, but how successful it will be is another matter. However, it is claimed that the government’s efforts have brought relief in the last few days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Record-breaking pollution continues to wreak havoc in Delhi. Today, the air quality index (AQI) remained close to 400, showing a very serious situation. This causes difficulty breathing, coughing and increases the risk of lung-related diseases. However, the government claims it lacks concrete data to prove a direct link between high AQI levels and lung disease.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":359484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-359483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}