A number of public health catastrophes - arising largely out of environmental reasons — are staring the people of India in the face. While the debate over polluted air and how to control it rages on in the national capital, people have also had to contend with a host of other health challenges this year, ranging from strange pathogens to heightened risk from lifestyle ailments. Centre for Science and Environment's latest publication — Body Burden 2015: State of India's Health - examines and dissects this linkage between environment and health quite comprehensively.
Speaking to the media, CSE director generalSunitaNarain said: "The report shows us that we must focus on prevention and not treatment. We need to improve the environment, reduce the disease burden and save money in private or public healthcare."
The findings of the report were discussed with the media on Tuesday afternoon by SunitaNarain while the report was released later in the evening by Dr. SoumyaSwaminathan, Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). Other invitees included Dr. Mahesh C Misra, Director of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), and Dr K Vijay Raghavan, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology, Government of India. Some of the main findings of the report include:
Air pollution is one of the top 10 killers in the world and is the fifth leading cause of death in India. It results in about 620,000 premature deaths which are caused by stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, ischemic heart disease, lower respiratory infections and trachea, bronchus and lung cancer, among others. The report highlights the heightened vulnerability of the poor. It calls for stringent actions on air pollution.
The report has gone into areas such as vehicular pollution, industrial pollution, polluting cook stoves that cause indoor pollution, and related issues. The report states: "Death toll due to uncontrolled air pollution-related illnesses alone has increased worldwide by a whopping 300 per cent in the last decade: from 800,000 in year 2000 to 3.2 million in 2012... In Delhi, which was named as the most polluted city of the world by WHO in 2014, air pollution is responsible for 10,000 to 30,000 annual deaths."
"The way forward would be to reduce the source of air pollution-mainly revamping our transportation systems and forcing the industry to come up with cleaner technologies. But people are not aware of these linkages and continue to junk public transport," said Narain.
