Air Pollution has been this year’s theme of World Environment Day. It has been brought to notice how slowly and steadily air pollution is turning into a major health problem in Northeast India. Here the deaths due to Air Respiratory Infection (ARI) are on the rise.
The National Health Profile (NHP), 2018, released by the Central Bureau of Health Intelligence (CBHI), reported 225 deaths in Assam, due to ARI in 2017 and it was the highest. It was followed by Mizoram wherein 36 deaths were recorded, Manipur, Tripura, Nagaland, Sikkim, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh 23, 21, 9, 8, 7 and 3, respectively.
Also, the NHP, 2018 highlighted that Meghalaya had the highest number of ARI cases, somewhere around 3,33,772 among eight states in the region in 2017. Chairman KG Bhattacharyya, NHP, has expressed concern over the increasing trend of particulate matter (PM10) in five cities and towns of Assam. Places like Guwahati, Nalbari, Nagaon, Silchar, and Sivasagar are reeling under the same.
Biodiversity conservation organization Aaranyak said monitoring of air quality by the Assam Pollution Control Board at Bamunimaidan in Guwahati has revealed the presence of respirable suspended particulate matter (RSPM) and suspended particulate matter (SPM) well above the prescribed limit since 2008.
Aaranyak has planned a series of awareness and action-based interventions for sensitizing people about the cause and effect of air pollution.
Image Credit: Accuweather
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