Preliminary observations from the surveillance data of various hospitals suggest that there is an increase in respiratory illness cases during periods when air quality worsens, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said on Tuesday.
The National Programme on Climate Change and Human Health of the National Centre for Disease Control has initiated surveillance on acute respiratory illnesses through sentinel surveillance sites, established in nearly 80 hospitals across 18 states. This surveillance is meant to observe the trends of acute respiratory illnesses reported from sentinel hospitals of cities in relation to the respective air quality levels, Mandaviya said in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
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"Preliminary observations from such data suggest that there is an increase in respiratory illness cases during periods when air quality worsens," he said. The ARI digital surveillance data was started in August 2023 through Integrated Health Information portal, Mandaviya said.
Air pollution is one of the major contributing factors for respiratory ailments and associated diseases is common knowledge. There is no doubt that health of human body, including the respiratory system are additionally impacted by number of other factors which include food, occupation, medical co-morbidity, immunity and heredity, etc., of the individuals also.
"The association between air pollution and obstructive lung disease is well established," Mandaviya said responding to a question. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in collaboration with Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and Institute of Health Matrix and Evaluation (IHME) had conducted a study titled "The impact of air pollution on deaths, disease burden and life expectancy across India" in 2018.
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The ICMR has also conducted a multi-site study to document acute effect of increase in air pollution on respiratory morbidity. The study was conducted on patients attending emergency room of five sites namely AIIMS (paediatric, adults), Kalawati Saran Children's Hospital, VP Chest Institute, National institute of Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases.
For purpose of this study, air pollution was divided into three clusters (high, medium and low pollution days). A total of 33,213 which constituted 12.6 per cent of number of patients who visited emergency rooms were identified and enrolled with complete data collection."Analysis suggested that there was an increase in the number of patients attending emergency rooms with increase in pollution levels. Effect was more pronounced in children," Mandaviya stated.
The minister also listed several steps that have been taken to address air pollution issues.
