According to an international study published in The Lancet, pollution caused three times more deaths than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis put together in 2015.
NEW DELHI:Pollution killed 25 lakh Indians in 2015, the world’s highest number of deaths caused by air, water and other forms of pollution, according to an international study published in The Lancet.China stood second with 1.8 million deaths attributed to pollution.
The study said almost all pollution-related deaths – around 92% – are in poor or middle-income countries.In 2015, nearly one in six deaths, an estimated nine million worldwide, was related to pollution in some form — air, water, soil, chemical or occupational pollution, according to a new report published Thursday in The Lancet.Pollution is the largest environmental cause of disease and premature death in the world today.
Air pollution is by far the largest contributor to early death, according to the new research produced by The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health.Asia and Africa are the regions putting the most people at risk, the study found, while India tops the list of individual countries. This form of pollution is linked to 6.5 million fatalities in 2015.
Water pollution, responsible for 1.8 million deaths, and workplace-related pollution, which led to 0.8 million deaths, pose the next largest risks, the report noted.One in six of all deaths worldwide are caused by pollution, and the vast majority occur in developing and industrialising countries like India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kenya, among others, the report said.
A rise in air pollution, chemical pollution and soil pollution was seen during the study, all of which are associated with increase in industrialisation.The research, conducted by about 40 international scientists, used data from the Global Burden of Disease study from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, adds Reuters.
