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The World Health Organization strengthened its air quality guidelines on Wednesday, saying that air pollution is now one of the greatest environmental threats to human health, causing 7 million premature deaths each year.
It stated that urgent action is needed to reduce exposure to air pollution, equating its disease burden with smoking and unhealthy diets.
“WHO has lowered almost all air quality guidelines levels and warned that exceeding the new… levels will pose significant health risks,” it said.
“Stick to them can save millions of lives.”
The guide aims to protect people from the adverse effects of air pollution and is used by the government as a reference for legally binding standards.
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The last time the United Nations health agency issued air quality guidelines or AQG was in 2005, and it has had a significant impact on global pollution reduction policies.
However, the WHO stated that in the next 16 years, stronger evidence emerged of how air pollution can affect health at lower levels than previously understood.
The organization said: “The accumulated evidence is sufficient to justify actions to reduce population exposure to major air pollutants, not only in specific countries or regions, but also on a global scale.”
The release of the new guidelines coincides with the COP26 Global Climate Summit held in Glasgow from October 31st to November 12th.
The WHO stated that along with climate change, air pollution is one of the greatest environmental threats to human health. It said that improving air quality will strengthen efforts to mitigate climate change, and vice versa.
New World Health Organization guidelines recommend air quality levels for six pollutants, including ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide.
The other two are PM10 and PM2.5-particles equal to or less than 10 and 2.5 microns in diameter.
The World Health Organization says that both can penetrate deep into the lungs, but studies have shown that PM2.5 can even enter the bloodstream, causing cardiovascular and respiratory problems, but it also affects other organs.
In response, the PM2.5 guideline level has been halved.
In 2019, more than 90% of the world’s population lived in areas where the long-term exposure to PM2.5 exceeded the 2005 AQG. Southeast Asia is the most severely affected region.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “Air pollution poses a threat to the health of all countries, but it hits people in low- and middle-income countries the most.”
The WHO stated that although the air quality in high-income countries has improved significantly since the 1990s, the number of deaths and years of healthy life lost in the world has hardly declined because the air quality in most other countries has generally deteriorated, which is in line with their economic growth. Consistent. develop.
The WHO stated: “It is estimated that exposure to air pollution will cause 7 million premature deaths each year and cause millions of loss of healthy lifespan.”
In children, this may include decreased lung growth and function, respiratory infections, and worsening asthma.
In adults, ischemic heart disease (also known as coronary heart disease) and stroke are the most common causes of premature death from outdoor air pollution.
The organization said that evidence of other effects is also emerging, such as diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases.
The WHO stated that the burden of disease caused by air pollution is “equal to other major global health risks such as unhealthy diets and smoking.”
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