ENVIRONMENT: City Children Face Grave Dangers From Air Pollution

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

Mexico City, Sep 26 1999 (IPS) - A leading Mexican environmentalist is urging authorities in the world’s largest cities to take urgent action to protect millions of children ôexposed to life- threatening air pollution.

New and mounting evidence of the peculiar threats to children should prompt those in power to develop a political strategy to tackle the things that contribute to this city’s toxic level, says Professor Jose Luis Lezama, a senior researcher in environmental policy at the College of Mexico.

Here, as in many other mega-cities, large numbers of children fall ill as a direct consequence of the pollutants emitted by lead levels of the vehicles that ply through the city.

Mexico is the most contaminated city, even worse than Santiago an d Sao Paolo, he adds.

There are periods here when children are kept indoors in their schools when the pollution level soars to a dangerous level.

Lezama’s comments came in response to the release here Thursday of a new report by the Washington-based World Resources Institute (WRI).

Titled Urban Air Pollution Risks to Children: A Global Environmental Health Indicator, the Report states that Millions of children growing up in the world’s largest cities, particularly those living in developing countries, are increasingly under severe threats of exposure to preventable life-threatening air pollution.

Children living in such cities end up inhaling polluted air that is ôtwo to eight times above the maximum World Health Organization (WHO) exposure guidelines, it states.

More than 80 percent of all deaths in developing countries attributable to air pollution-induced lung infections occur among children under five years of age.

The findings in this report have been based on an Environmental Health Indicator (EHI), which, the authors say, was helpful to rank the 18 mega-cities in the developing world.

Information, though, was gathered from 207 cities and metropolitan regions in 53 countries, where records had been maintained between 1993 and 1995 to measure the annual levels of three air pollutants physical, chemical and biological.

Two of the authors Dr Devra Davis and Dr Paulo Saldiva say the indicator reflected a need to concentrate on standardising monitoring and data collection methods since regional and international efforts to control air pollution are of increasing importance as pollution does not discriminate between nations.

Among the report’s findings were the following:

— Air Pollution in the developing world is responsible for at least 50 million cases of chronic cough in those under age 14.

— The combined effect of several pollutants is greater than merely adding up the effects of individual pollutants. Some of the highest risks to children occur in cities in Mexico, India, China, Brazil and Iran.

— In many of the world’s largest cities, which have some of the highest levels of pollution, the average age of the population is under 16. The more life years of exposure and accrual of physiological damage from pollution that that population will experience.

Early this month, the World Bank, too, made note of this dangerous feature in its World Development Report 1999/2000, singling out mega- cities such as Delhi and Bangkok.

The Bank said that in Delhi, ôthe incidence of bronchial asthma in the 5-6 age group is 10-12 percent, and air pollution is one of the major causes.

Of Bangkok, it observed, ôA 1990 study of atmospheric lead pollution estimated that 30,000 to 70,000 children risked losing 4 or more IQ point because of high lead levels, and many more risked smaller reductions in intelligence.

What is more, the Bank also drew the parallel that in large cities of the developing world, breathing air may be as harmful as smoking two packs of cigarettes a day.

Other groups have raised concerns, including a group of doctors in one of the cities with fouled air, New Delhi.

In July this year, close to 125,000 of them rallied together in a campaign that called for the banning of diesel engines in the Indian capital, considered the leading pollutant of the atmosphere.

According to the WRI report, there are findings to be pleased about, too.

Energy efficiency, vehicle standards and traffic management are seen as ways of combating urban problem. In Brazil, for instance, the government has been actively promoting the growth of less polluting forms of transit and energy.

But such achievements have been marginal in comparison with the amount of toxins floating in the wind. And that is underscored by the WRI’s call for immediate global air pollution interventions in the developing world.

For Lezama, however, while such measures are introduced, the children who live in the cities will continue to be victims.

It is difficult to keep children indoors, for they want to play, go out. In Mexico that only happens during crisis periods, when the air is very dangerous to breath, and not at other times, he says.

And to save them from pollution-related illnesses, a different strategy has to be pursued, he adds. What we currently have won’t do.