2.5 million Indians died of pollution in 2015, says Lancet

DUBIOUS HONOUR With one in six deaths worldwide, India tops list as report highlights economic cost of pollution

NEWDELHI: Indians are the worst affected by environmental pollution in the world, a study in The Lancet medical journal released on Thursday has said. Of 9 million deaths worldwide arising from pollution in 2015, India accounted for 2.5 million, it said.

Pollution is killing more people every year than smoking, hunger or natural disasters; more than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria put together, and 15 times more than all wars and other forms of violence.

The most people at risk are in Asia and Africa, and India tops the list of individual countries.

In the most severely affected countries, pollution is responsible for more than one in four deaths.

India is one of the worst affected countries, with 1.81 million people dying of air pollution and 0.64 million dying of diseases linked to water pollution in 2015, according to the report.

China is close second, with 1.8 million pollution-linked deaths. Prolonged exposure to pollution — air, water and other forms, leads to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardio vascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer and stroke.

Air pollution has grown worse in the past two decades, with number of deaths surging 20% from an estimated 3.5 million in 1990 to 4.2 million in 2015.

The report also points out that air quality improvements in high-income countries have not only reduced deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory disease, but have also yielded substantial economic and commercial gains.