Children of migrant workers in New Delhi wearing protective face masks wait to cross the border to Uttar Pradesh, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Adnan Abidi.
On December 16, a second inquest into the death of nine-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah, in the UK, concluded that dangerous levels of air pollution caused her death in 2013 from a fatal asthma attack. This decision came on the back of several years of campaigning by Ella’s mother Rosamund and others, who argued that high levels of air pollution, due to the presence of a busy motorway near their home, contributed to her respiratory condition. This first of its kind direct attribution of air pollution on a death certificate sets a legal precedent that will hopefully put to rest denials heard around the world, and especially in India, questioning the links between air pollution and premature death.
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People walk along Rajpath near India Gate under heavy smog conditions in New Delhi on November 9, 2020. AFP
Air pollution led to 1.67M dead in India in 2019
Wed, 23 December 2020
Globally, India is the country where air pollution kills the most people per year, reveals a new report by US and Indian researchers. As many as 1.67 million deaths last year were attributable to air pollution – 17.8 per cent of all deaths in the country.
Air pollution takes a heavy human and economic toll in India, a country of about 1.35 billion people. That’s what an alarming report on the subject unveiled on December 22 by researchers from the Global Observatory on Pollution and Health at Boston College, the Indian Council of Medical Research, and the Public Health Foundation of India, indicates.
Will India have enough coronavirus vaccines and vaccinators? Quartz 24/12/2020
In a study published in the reputed medical journal
the BMJ earlier this week, researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health noted that a quarter of the world’s population would be unlikely to have access to Covid-19 vaccines until 2022.
The global multilateral effort, COVAX, is meant to counter a situation exactly like this one, with the promise to provide fair and equitable access to vaccines. But the sequence in which vaccine manufacturers will fill orders is unclear. Will bilateral purchase obligations take precedence over multinational organisations?
Scroll.in spoke to K Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India, on how soon India could have access to vaccines and the potential challenges we face. Edited excerpts:
Will India have enough coronavirus vaccines and vaccinators? — Quartz India qz.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from qz.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Human and Economic Toll of Air Pollution in India by Iswarya on December 24, 2020 at 2:50 PM
Lancet Planetary Health.
Air pollution in India resulted 1.67 million deaths in 2019 - the largest pollution-related death toll in any country in the world - and also accounted for $36.8 billion (US) in economic losses, according to a new study led by researchers from the Global Observatory on Pollution and Health at Boston College, the Indian Council of Medical Research, and the Public Health Foundation of India.
The $36.8 billion in economic loss was 1.36 percent of the country s gross domestic product, according to the report, titled The health and economic impact of air pollution in the states of India.