Air pollution has jumped to number five spot amongst the top killers in India. Releasing India-specific data, the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) warned that outdoor air pollution caused 627,000 deaths and 17.7 million healthy years of life lost in 2010. Worldwide, outdoor air pollution caused 3.2 million premature deaths and over 74 million years of healthy life lost in 2010. A substantial rise in cardiovascular diseases, strokes and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases in India in 2010 are directly attributed to rising levels of particulate matter pollution. Two-thirds of the rising disease graph worldwide are found in South Asia. Dr Vinod Raina, heading the oncology wing at AIIMS, confirmed that “we are getting 10 lakh new cancer cases every year, out of which approximately one lakh are lung cancer cases. We still have to quantify how many of these lung cancer cases are pollution-related”. Dr Aaron Cohen, principal scientist, Health Effects Institute, Boston, and chair of the Air Pollution Group at Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation for Global Burden of Disease, pointed out that a study of lung cancer amongst non-smokers had shown a 60 per cent increase caused by air pollution. Prof. S.K. Chhabra, heading the department of cardio-respiratory physiology at the Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute, warned against the risk from new generation pollutants, especially ozone which is currently responsible for a four per cent increase in mortality rates. “Ozone has become a key ingredient of urban smog,” said Prof. Chhabra. Prof. Randeep Guleria, head, pulmonary unit, AIIMS, highlighted how indoor air pollution had emerged as another major killer amongst women using biomass for their cooking requirements. “Women in the Gujjar community suffer high incidence of cancer caused by indoor air pollution,” Prof. Guleria explained. The India-related data was calculated from the largest global database ever assembled using India-specific levels of baseline mortality and incidence of five leading causes of death in India and was released at a workshop organised by ICMR and CSE. The 2010 GBD was produced by a rigorous scientific process involving 150 global experts led by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation along with WHO and Harvard University.
