Air pollution kills 7 million people a year

Today air pollution had become the biggest health risk worldwide according to the report of World Health Organization –WHO. In numbers one in eight deaths are caused by air-pollution. This problem kills around 7 million people worldwide a year.

The principal risk is that tiny particles of pollution –provide by coal and wood stoves inside the houses- go deep into the lungs causing irritation, heart problems and later lung and bladder cancer. Around 90% of the deaths occur in developing countries. The WHO’s report said that women are more susceptible to acquire higher levels of air-pollution in their systems than men. On the other hand, other experts said they need many studies to know what are the harmful components in air-pollution. The idea is know if dust from the Sahara causes the same consequences than diesel fuel or burning coal.

Real and practical measures should be taken about air-pollution damage. The agency proposed to governments to curb the levels of air-pollution now. Lastly, the use of face masks in polluted cities like Beijing is not a solution because they said that there was little evidence it works as an effective protection from this risk.

Opinion

Part of life is death, but deaths caused by ourselves could be avoided. The measures about humanity’s behavior are stipulated in worldwide policies and today one of our principal concerns is about environmental health which affects directly each person.

The numbers are alarming. Nowadays more people died because of air pollution and the measures have been too feeble. We have to take more action in this public health problem as individual people. The consequences become more aggressive every year, people suffering cancer and heart problems. Using face masks… really? We are not prepared to this, we need to breathe, every life form needs to breathe and pollution airborne gets every corner of the planet.

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Associated Press in London. March 25th 2014. 10.05 GMT. Air pollution kills 7 million people a year. The Guardian, UK. Taken from http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/25/air-pollution-kills-7m-people-a-year