The majority of the world’s population breathes contaminated air

A new report revealed, today, that most of the world’s cities suffer from air pollution, as only 17% of cities are committed globally with air quality guidelines.

The Swiss IKire database specialized in air quality control analyzed data from 40,000 monitoring stations in 138 countries, and found that the countries with the most polluted air are: Chad, Congo, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India.

It was also 6 cities in India among the 9 most polluted cities in the world, with the industrial city of Berniaat, northeastern India, topped the existing list.

Experts pointed out that the actual amount of air pollution may be greater due to the lack of surveillance devices in many regions. For example, in Africa, there is only one monitor for every 3.7 million people.

However, more air quality control stations are installed to meet the problem, as the report this year enables to add data from 8954 new sites and add more than a thousand new monitoring devices.

But the monitoring efforts were subjected to a setback last week when the US State Department announced that it would not publish air quality data issued by its embassies and consulates around the world anymore.

Inhalation of prolonged air contaminated air in respiratory diseases, Alzheimer’s and cancer, according to Fatima Ahmed, the chief scientist and air pollution expert at the Malaysian Senus for Health on the planet. The World Health Organization estimates that 7 million people die annually due to air pollution.

“If you have contaminated water, or there is no water, you can ask people to wait half an hour (until it is purified), but if you have contaminated air, you cannot ask people to stop breathing.”