We are awfully stunned by a report published in a local English daily on Thursday that Bangladesh recorded 225,000 deaths linked to manmade air pollution in 2022,a 28 percent rise since 2010, an international team of experts revealed in a major study on Wednesday. At least,30,600 of thesedeaths were directly attributed to fossil fuels, according to Lancet’s countdown, a major annual study tracking the health impacts of climate change. Another study reveals that over 271,000 people in Bangladesh died from air pollution in 2023, with over 90 percent connected to non-communicable diseases.
The foul air is one of the major killers of lakhs of people per year. We have been warned of severe air pollution through various reports over the years and the latest one gives us the jitters about the impending public health hazards. The problem is most acute in cities, but air in rural areas has also gone from bad to worse than many can think about. The reports, therefore, obviously call for a dramatic action on our part against pollution that is to blame for myriad of deaths. The reports are enough to make all of us extremely concerned as air pollution in the capital has taken an alarming turn.
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 sources 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 these menaces. Despite such dour health risks insidiously creeping all over, the authorities have not taken up any major step so far to check air pollution.
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 estimated at 8.3 percent of the national GDP, shows how it has become a massive dragon productivity, healthcare expenditure, and overall nat0ional development. The recent declaration of Savar upazila as a degraded airshed ton finally shut down conventional kilns is a warning thatr degrading air quality and policy failure have both been persistent.
Checking air pollution is a public health emergency and fast action to tackle this menace should come soon enough. Initiatives like modernization of brick kilns, improving waste management, phasing out longevity –expired vehicles from roads may curb air pollution in cities. City corporation must be held accountable for waste management to dust control on all public works. The checking of air pollution must be pursued ruthlessly backed by severe financial and legal penalties. The government must act right now before it is too late to combat bad air peril.
