London coroner rules air pollution contributed to young girl's death

LONDON: A British legal first was made on Wednesday when a coroner ruled that air pollution contributed to the death of a nine-year-old girl with severe asthma who lived by a busy road.

Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah died in February 2013 after a serious asthma attack. In the previous three years, she had been taken to hospital nearly 30 times with breathing difficulties.

The young girl lived in southeast London just 30 metres (yards) from a major ringroad in the capital which is often clogged with heavy traffic.

"Air pollution made a material contribution to Ella's death," assistant coroner Philip Barlow said in a ruling after hearing 10 days of evidence.

"She was exposed to levels of nitrogen dioxide in excess of World Health Organisation guidelines."

He said it was also important to record there were a "recognised failure" to reduce those NO2 levels, "which possibly contributed to her death".

A lack of information given to her mother, Rosamund, was also a possible cause, he added.

A first inquest in 2014 into Ella's death determined that she died of acute respiratory failure. But the ruling was overturned and a new hearing ordered after a review of the case.

Air pollution expert Stephen Holgate found a "striking link" between levels of NO2 and harmful particulate matter at the times she was taken to hospital for treatment.

He told the inquest she was "living on a knife edge" because of her surroundings and the air quality in her neighbourhood, which exacerbated her condition.

Winter air pollution worsened her asthma in the months leading up to her death, added Holgate, a professor of immunopharmacology at the University of Southampton.