 |
INDOOR POLLUTION/
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
source: www.who.int/mediacentre/
news/statements/2004/statement5/en/
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/
2004-05/13/content_1468263.htm
|
|
Nearly half of the world continues to cook with solid fuels such as dung, wood, agricultural residues and coal…
Smoke from burning these fuels gives off a poisonous cocktail of particles and chemicals that bypass the body’s defences and more than doubles the risk of respiratory illnesses such as bronchitis and pneumonia:- thick acrid smoke rising from stoves and fires inside homes is associated with around 1.6 million deaths per year in developing countries – that’s one life lost every 20 seconds to the killer in the kitchen;
- according to the WHO, a typical wood-fired cooking stove creates carbon monoxide and other noxious fumes at concentrations up to 500 times the allowable limit;
- the World Energy Assessment estimates that the amount of smoke from these fires is the equivalent of consuming 2 packs of cigarettes a day;
- statistics show that indoor air pollution has doubled over the past 15 years in surveyed cases in some developing countries and regions like China and India: each day about 5,000 people die of indoor air pollution (1);
- in India, where 80% of households use biomass fuel, estimates show that nearly 500,000 women and children under age 5 die every year from indoor pollution, largely from acute respiratory infections (2);
- 111,000 people in China died - in 2004 only - from diseases caused by indoor air pollution every year, about the same number of people killed by traffic accidents in the country. (3)
(1) P. OleFanger, expert from the Technical University of Denmark.
(2) World Bank, Indoor Air Pollution Newsletter: Energy and Health for the Poor, no. 2 (December 2000); and K. Smith, "National Burden of Disease in India from Indoor Air Pollution" (2000).
(3) According to a national seminar on indoor air quality in China (2004).
|
