5,43,000 deaths of children under the age of five.
That was the horrifying cost of pollution (both indoor and outdoor) globally in 2016.
Three years later, things have not changed for the better - in fact, they have gotten worse.
Closer home though, the situation is really bad, with hazardous air in Delhi - which hovers between 500 to 800 these days - continuing to impact children the most.
Delhi Kids Have it Worse Than Rural Kids (When it Comes to Air)
The Yale Global Health Review
The study, which involved conducting tests on 11,628 children from 36 Delhi schools and 15 rural schools in West Bengal and Uttaranchal had these shocking findings:
43.5 % of Delhi school kids were living with “poor or restrictive lungs” as compared to 22% of the kids in rural schools.
- While 4% of rural children reported frequent eye irritation, 15% of children in Delhi reported it.
- While 12% rural kids reported frequent headaches, the number is Delhi was 27.4%
- While 5% rural kids had experienced nausea, 11.2% Delhi kids had experienced it
- While 3.3% rural kids had reported heart palpitations, 7.2% kids in Delhi had reported it.
- While 6.7 % rural kids were fatigued, 12.9% kids in Delhi had reported feeling fatigued.
Here’s another shocker: According to the report, roughly 50% of the 4.4 million children of Delhi already have “irreversible lung damage.”
But even among Delhi kids, the damage is not equal. The poorest of children are among the most vulnerable to the health impacts of the toxic air.
Globally too, for children aged five or less and born in the low and medium income countries of Africa, East Mediterranean, and South East Asia - pollution just hits them harder.
According to WHO, while for Africa, the death rate per 100,000 children attributable to pollution is 184.1, for Eastern Mediterranean regions it is 98.6, and for South East Asian LMIC countries it is 75.
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