Illegal toxic air linked to girl’s death from asthma

A SCHOOLGIRL’S death from asthma is the first to be directly linked to air pollution.

Ella Kissi-Debrah lived just 80ft from London’s traffic- clogged South Circular Road.

The nine-year-old’s family believe the filthy air around their home was a ‘silent killer’, although her inquest did not establish the cause of her asthma.

But Ella suffered repeated seizures and was admitted to hospital 28 times before dying in 2013 from acute respiratory failure.

Now a leading scientist has proved that her asthma attacks happened at almost exactly the same times as spikes in air pollution that were so high they breached EU legal limits.

More than 40,000 Britons are believed to suffer an early death due to air pollution but, until now, no individual fatality has been directly linked to vehicle fumes.

Ella’s death could now become a test case and her family are using the new evidence to apply to reopen the inquest into her death.

Her mother Rosamund AdooKissi-Debrah wants the Attorney General to reopen the inquest and help save other children.

‘I need to find out for myself why she died and what the causes are,’ she said.

‘I need this for my other children, in order to protect their health. I also believe there is a public interest in examining her death because if this direct link were made, then the health of our children would have to be prioritised over other considerations including the convenience Fatal fits: Ella Kissi-Debrah of drivers.’ Ella used to walk to school along the South Circular Road which is a notorious pollution hotspot.

She was first taken to hospital in 2010 after a coughing fit and was admitted 27 times over the next three years.

Her home was just one mile from a government air pollution monitoring station, which records levels of nitrogen dioxide and PM10s, the most noxious pollutants.

A report by professor Stephen Holgate, an expert on asthma and air quality, has found that spikes in air pollution coincided with all but one of Ella’s emergency admissions, and her death came after one of the worst air pollution episodes in her area.

His report concluded there was a ‘real prospect that without unlawful levels of air pollution, Ella would not have died’.

The evidence will now be submitted in an appeal to the Attorney General’s Office.

The family will argue that Ella’s right to life may have been breached by the Government’s failure to act on unlawful air pollution levels near her home.