K-P health dept wants air quality monitored

Letter written to provincial environmental body to provide data


Our Correspondent November 28, 2017
Letter written to provincial environmental body to provide data. PHOTO: FILE

PESHAWAR: With air pollution posing a major health risk to residents of the provincial capital, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Health Directorate has asked the provincial environmental watchdog body to monitor air quality on a daily basis.

The direction came after Peshawar suffered from the smog, which had all but paralysed life in parts of neighbouring Punjab.

The health department expressed the fear that the quality of air in major cities of the province may be far worse than the standards set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and may lead to respiratory diseases.

Through a letter, the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) director general was asked to monitor the quality of air on a daily basis so that emergency steps could be taken in time. Moreover, the health department said that air quality should only be monitored in Peshawar, but also in other parts of the province.

Due to the ongoing construction for the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), residents of Peshawar are not only facing severe traffic jams every day but also suffer from the air pollution due to the project including dust kicked up from construction activities and fumes emitted from cars which are stuck in traffic snarl-ups.

Apart from construction projects, the province has been suffering from other polluting events which have been afflicting different parts of the country: the smog.

Fearing that the smog will adversely affect the health of residents, officials from the health department have asked to enforce a health emergency in the city.

“Air pollution in the city may trigger a health alert,” said the letter issued to the EPA on Monday. “Population may be affected by this serious health issues.”

The health department also sought the environmental watchdog’s input on how people can be protected from the harmful effects of air pollution.

The K-P Public Health (surveillance and response) Act 2017, defines hazardous agents as biological, chemical, radiological or the physical agents with the potential to cause harm to humans.

The inter-departmental K-P public health committee, formed under the act and headed by the Minister of Health, is primarily responsible for implementing and enforcing measures to prevent and control health.

Once the EPA collects data on air quality, this data will be fed into the health surveillance system at the Health director general office.

According to the WHO Air quality guidelines, by reducing particulate matter (PM10) pollution from 70 to 20 micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m), air pollution-related deaths can be cut by around 15 per cent.

According to the latest urban air quality database, 98% of cities in low- and middle-income countries with more than 100,000 inhabitants do not meet WHO air quality guidelines. However, in high-income countries, that percentage decreases to 56%.

The WHO noted that Peshawar had a PM10 reading of 540 µg/m and was highest in Pakistan. Rawalpindi was second with a reading of 448 µg/m, Karachi was third with 290 µg/m, Islamabad with 217 µg/m and Lahore with 198 µg/m.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 28th, 2017.

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