Fear or panic has become, as though, a constant companion of people’s life recently thanks to multiple visible factors. But air pollution is an invisible danger lurking in cities and rural areas as well. Although the environment scientists and experts are gripped by pollution panic, apathy of the authorities concerned to this crisis is alarming.
We get startled to learn from a State of Global Air Report just released that over 271,000 people in Bangladesh died from air pollution in2023, with over 90 percent connected to non-communicable diseases
Air in our cities and elsewhere is toxic to all, particularly the exponentially adverse impact it is having on children. According to the State of Global Air 2024 report by the Health Effects Institute and Unicef, nearly 19000 children under the age of five died from air pollution in Bangladesh in 2021 on an average more than 50 deaths every day. It should be a wake-up call to the nation that over 50 innocent lives are lost every day. We are terrified that this number may keep rising if we fail to take appropriate measures to check air pollution immediately.
Moreover, air pollution is now the country’s deadliest external health risk, slicing five years and a half of an average citizen’s life. The economic cost also shows how it has become a huge drag on productivity, healthcare expenditures impacting adversely the national development. But still the threat continues to be met with neglect and inertia. As a result, Dhaka’s air quality is worsening day by day. The average concentration levels of the most critical air pollutant are particulate matter. Other pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and Sulphur dioxides have also exceeded limit values of local standards.
The problem of air pollution is the most acute in cities, but air in rural areas has also gone from bad to worse than many can think about. Various reports are enough to make all of us extremely concerned. Sometime ago Dhaka was placed among 25 cities with the most polluted and dirtiest air in the world. But the danger remains as serious as before to public health as high pollution level continues. Industrial smog, smoke from vehicles and brick kilns and dust from construction sites are the main source of pollution. People with exposure to air polluting particles stand the risks of developing cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and even lung cancer and disorder in the urinary tract or bladder. The adolescent children, elderly people and pregnant women are much more susceptible to this menace.
Checking air pollution is a public health emergency and fast action to tackle this menace should come soon enough. Initiatives like modernisation of brick kilns, improving waste management, phasing out longevity-expired vehicles from roads may curb air pollution. To break this deadly cycle, the authorities concerned must elevate the pursuit of clean air to a national priority. The major sources of pollution must be pursued ruthlessly, not only in Dhaka but across all cities, backed by severe financial and legal penalties. The government must act right now before it is too late to combat bad air peril.
