Article -Air pollution as pandemic,
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Household air pollution is a serious public health concern in India with more than half of the Indian households relying on solid fuel use. The long periods of lockdown related measures to control COVID‐19 pandemic in India further aggravated the adverse health effects of household air pollution as millions Indians were exposed to high level of health‐damaging air pollutants inside their homes. This commentary discusses the vulnerability of the socioeconomically disadvantaged population forced to stay indoors during the pandemic. Exposure to household air pollution has detrimental effects on health, which might put individuals at higher risk for complications related to COVID‐19. A large proportion of socioeconomically disadvantaged section of the population were exposed to critical levels of household air pollution and more vulnerable to severe health effects of COVID‐19. There is a pressing need to understand the aggravated health consequences of household air pollution in association with COVID‐19.
1. OVERVIEW
The global outbreak of the COVID‐19 pandemic has affected millions of lives so far. The spread of pandemic has brought humongous challenges to the health and economy in high, low, and middle‐income countries. Even the best of the healthcare system in high‐income countries such as the United States of America, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom have been rendered precarious; the numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths in these countries are still daunting. With inadequate healthcare infrastructure, India as a more populous developing country faces more grave challenges. The World Health Organization (2020), reported 21,026,758 confirmed cases worldwide, out of which 2,526,192 confirmed cases and 49,036 deaths cases were recorded in India. India as a densely populated country with 17% of world's population in only 2.4% area faces an enhanced risk of spread of COVID‐19. To constrain the spread of this highly contagious disease, a nationwide lockdown was implemented in India since March 25, 2020; which restricted people from unnecessary movement, urging them to stay indoors and limiting all nonessential travel activities. Besides, the government has issued various guidelines regarding social distancing, wearing a mask, and maintaining regular hand hygiene.
A tiny silver lining widely discussed and celebrated in the time of lockdown of the pandemic is a sudden improvement in the ambient air. Several studies (Chauhan & Singh, 2020; Gautam, 2020; Sharma et al., 2020) have confirmed that lockdown in India has led to a significant decline in air pollution due to lower emissions of ambient pollutants related to transport and commercial and industrial activities. However, much less is discussed about the increased exposure to other common and more menacing sources of air pollution in India from the use of biomass and coal, for cooking and heating purposes due to stay‐at‐home orders. The strict lockdown has exposed people to household air pollution like never before. This is a serious concern for a country like India, where more than half of the population is still exposed to household air pollution due to solid fuel use (Balakrishnan et al., 2019; Gupta, 2019). In India, around 6.7 lakhs deaths a year are attributable to outdoor air pollution and approximately 4.8 lakhs premature deaths a year are linked to household air pollution due to the use of solid fuel (Balakrishnan et al., 2019).
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