Air pollution much bigger killer than Covid in India, finds study

KOLKATA: Air pollution caused nearly 13 times the number of deaths in 2019 than the raging Covid-19 pandemic the following year in Bengal, according to a recent report published by The Lancet. And it’s not just Bengal. The overall pollution-related deaths outnumber the countrywide Covid death figure by a huge margin.
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According to the ‘December 2020 Lancet Planetary Health Report’, 9,712 people died of Covid in Bengal last year, whereas pollution claimed 1.2 lakh lives (1,22,833 people) in 2019 and caused an economic loss of around Rs 15,516 crore.
Looking at the data, it’s clear which is the bigger killer across the country, even in a pandemic-ravaged year.
Across India, there were as many as 16.7 lakh deaths attributable to pollution in 2019, while Covid caused 1.5 lakh deaths in 2020, according to data sourced from all state governments and the Centre.
Among the institutions that The Lancet collaborated with for the survey was Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), which is at the forefront of strategizing the medical fraternity’s response to Covid-19 in the country.
Of the total deaths attributable to air pollution in India in 2019, the largest proportions were due to COPD (32.5%) and ischaemic heart disease (29.2%), followed by stroke (16.2%) and lower respiratory infections (11.2%).
Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Bengal and Rajasthan accounted for over 50% of the air pollution-attributable deaths in India, according to data from The Lancet’s report that was was conducted under the India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative by ICMR, Public Health Foundation of India and Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
The estimation of the economic impact of air pollution, as the cost of lost output due to premature deaths and morbidity attributable to air pollution for every state of India, was done using the cost-of-illness method. “Air pollution has clearly emerged as one of the biggest killers in India. Its impact on our economy is far-reaching. There is a long-drawn collective battle against it. A couple of doses of vaccine cannot prevent it. When Covid-19 has occupied the lion’s share of our mind space, The Lancet study is a grim reminder of what we are missing out on,” said Dr Arun Sharma, public health expert and professor of community medicine, University College of Medical Science, New Delhi.
“Air pollution is a major problem across India, and a much bigger issue across the Indo-Gangetic plain,” said Centre for Science and Environment executive director and air pollution expert Anumita Roychowdhury. “Bengal being at the tail end of the plain needs proactive steps to speed up action on transport, clean fuels in industry, clean power plants, waste management and biomass burning across the state.”
Doctors, too, have reported an alarming rise in non-smoking COPD patients, primarily due to indoor and outdoor pollution. “This is a bigger epidemic but currently going unnoticed because of our current obsession with Covid-19. The fast declining air quality in our urban areas has made even breathing injurious to health,” said Dr Arup Haldar, a senior pulmonologist with Woodlands Hospital.
Bengal Clean Air Network (Bengal CAN), which is spearheading a movement for better environment, is concerned about the current state of air quality in Bengal and the economic risk it poses to the population. “We need an all-out collective effort to clean up the air,” said Vinay Jaju of Bengal CAN.