Md. Sazedul Islam :
Dhaka’s air quality worsened alarmingly and the capital ranked No. 1 in the Air Quality Index across the world recently. According to government sources, brick kilns, construction work, road-digging and excess transport are the major causes of the air pollution.
There are 7902 brick kilns across the country and most of them are located around the capital, said the sources. Children, adults and people with respiratory diseases have been advised to avoid outdoor activities while others advised to limit their outdoor works in such a situation.
As Dhaka ranked worst in the Air Quality Index, the High Court on Tuesday came forward expressing its grave concerns and issued a set of directives to identify the causes of air pollution and formulate a guideline to reduce it in and around the capital.
The HC bench also ordered the government to conduct mobile court drives to shut down illegal brick kilns in five districts within 15 days to bring down air pollution level. It also asked the authorities to take steps to remove dust from flyovers and areas undergoing development.
The World Bank and the Department of Environment (DoE) reported recently on air pollution in Dhaka city where brick fields were blamed mostly for the air pollution.
Health experts said that such pollution create scope to respiratory diseases, which are among the leading causes of significant health burden across the world, including Bangladesh. Air pollution, negative effect of climate change and tobacco smoking pose a serious and increasing threat and responsible for creating lung diseases like COPD, lung cancer and respiratory infections, they said.
The information was revealed at a high level health conference, which concluded in the capital recently. In a bid to promote lung health, the 6th International Conference on Lung Health titled ‘PULMOCON 2019’ ended in the capital.
Organized by Bangladesh Lung Foundation (BLF) at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre, the conference theme this year has been selected as “Battle for breaths: Achieving excellence in lung health”.
About 1300 physicians from 18 countries, including Bangladesh, attended the three-day event when a good number of workshops and scientific sessions were held. The event aimed at disseminating latest developments in pulmonology to the grassroots level.
BLF sources said the conference provided a common platform for doctors from home and abroad to exchange their research findings and clinical experiences with the goal of finding ways to treat the diseases more effectively.
Prof. Md. Ali Hossain, president of BLF, BLF general secretary Dr. Asif Mujtaba Mahmud, BLF Founding Member Prof. Md. Ruhul Amin, Congress Chair of PULMOCON Prof. Md. Rashidul Hassan, among others, spoke on the occasion.
Addressing at the event, health experts termed respiratory diseases as one of the leading causes of health burden worldwide, including in Bangladesh.
Some 68,462 or 8.69% of the total deaths are caused by lung disease in Bangladesh annually. Annually Asthma alone affects 70 lakh people, the incidence of tuberculosis in Bangladesh is 221 per 100,000 population and 70,000 Bangladeshis die from tuberculosis, they observed.
Citing a study of BLF, they said in Bangladesh a good number of working-age groups are suffering from different respiratory diseases like asthma, COPD, TB and lung malignancies. Terming air pollution, climate change and tobacco smoking for creating threat to lung health, they called for taking up a pragmatic action plan to face the challenge of rising mortality and morbidity due to respiratory diseases, which will soon strike the third leading cause of death globally by 2020.
To combat the threat, it is needed to organize multiple awareness programmes, they observed.
(The author is a freelancer).
Dhaka’s air quality worsened alarmingly and the capital ranked No. 1 in the Air Quality Index across the world recently. According to government sources, brick kilns, construction work, road-digging and excess transport are the major causes of the air pollution.
There are 7902 brick kilns across the country and most of them are located around the capital, said the sources. Children, adults and people with respiratory diseases have been advised to avoid outdoor activities while others advised to limit their outdoor works in such a situation.
As Dhaka ranked worst in the Air Quality Index, the High Court on Tuesday came forward expressing its grave concerns and issued a set of directives to identify the causes of air pollution and formulate a guideline to reduce it in and around the capital.
The HC bench also ordered the government to conduct mobile court drives to shut down illegal brick kilns in five districts within 15 days to bring down air pollution level. It also asked the authorities to take steps to remove dust from flyovers and areas undergoing development.
The World Bank and the Department of Environment (DoE) reported recently on air pollution in Dhaka city where brick fields were blamed mostly for the air pollution.
Health experts said that such pollution create scope to respiratory diseases, which are among the leading causes of significant health burden across the world, including Bangladesh. Air pollution, negative effect of climate change and tobacco smoking pose a serious and increasing threat and responsible for creating lung diseases like COPD, lung cancer and respiratory infections, they said.
The information was revealed at a high level health conference, which concluded in the capital recently. In a bid to promote lung health, the 6th International Conference on Lung Health titled ‘PULMOCON 2019’ ended in the capital.
Organized by Bangladesh Lung Foundation (BLF) at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre, the conference theme this year has been selected as “Battle for breaths: Achieving excellence in lung health”.
About 1300 physicians from 18 countries, including Bangladesh, attended the three-day event when a good number of workshops and scientific sessions were held. The event aimed at disseminating latest developments in pulmonology to the grassroots level.
BLF sources said the conference provided a common platform for doctors from home and abroad to exchange their research findings and clinical experiences with the goal of finding ways to treat the diseases more effectively.
Prof. Md. Ali Hossain, president of BLF, BLF general secretary Dr. Asif Mujtaba Mahmud, BLF Founding Member Prof. Md. Ruhul Amin, Congress Chair of PULMOCON Prof. Md. Rashidul Hassan, among others, spoke on the occasion.
Addressing at the event, health experts termed respiratory diseases as one of the leading causes of health burden worldwide, including in Bangladesh.
Some 68,462 or 8.69% of the total deaths are caused by lung disease in Bangladesh annually. Annually Asthma alone affects 70 lakh people, the incidence of tuberculosis in Bangladesh is 221 per 100,000 population and 70,000 Bangladeshis die from tuberculosis, they observed.
Citing a study of BLF, they said in Bangladesh a good number of working-age groups are suffering from different respiratory diseases like asthma, COPD, TB and lung malignancies. Terming air pollution, climate change and tobacco smoking for creating threat to lung health, they called for taking up a pragmatic action plan to face the challenge of rising mortality and morbidity due to respiratory diseases, which will soon strike the third leading cause of death globally by 2020.
To combat the threat, it is needed to organize multiple awareness programmes, they observed.
(The author is a freelancer).
