Indoor pollution to kill millions in China, study

Beijing, China, October 4: A new study has suggested that more than 80 million people in China will die in the next more than two decades from lung disease.

Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) said millions of fatalities will occur across this Asian country in the next 25 years due to complications related to smoking and indoor pollution from burning of biomass and coal

The researchers warned if current levels of smoking and biomass and coal fuel use in Chinese homes, which is a common practice there for cooking and heating, continue, 83 million people in the country will die prematurely of lung disease by 2033.

The researchers, headed by Prof Majid Ezzati, predicted 65 million deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonarydefine disease (COPD) and 18 million deaths from lung cancerdefine between 2003 and 2033. Most of the predicted deaths are preventable, Ezzati says.

Interventions to reduce smoking and widespread practice of burning wood and coal in home stoves may dramatically reduce the number of fatalities. To curb the death numbers, public awareness and measures like building proper chimneys, air circular stoves with chimneys ending outside the house and ventilated ground stoves are needed.

The aforementioned interventions would significantly help reduce respirable particulates, carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide circulating indoors, thus saving many millions of lives.

"If China manages to control tobacco through taxation, through health education, through advertising bans, and if it manages to get clean fuel to the 70 per cent of its population who need cleaner fuels, they have a lot of health gains to make," he said.

Using mathematical models, Ezzati’s team said gradual elimination of smoking and the common practice of burning wood and coal in home stoves would avoid 26 million deaths from COPD and 6.3 million deaths from lung cancer by 2033.

"There are proven ways to reduce tobacco smoking and to provide homes with clean-burning energy alternatives. China can save millions of premature deaths from respiratory diseases in the next few decades if it leverages its effective policy system to implement these interventions," said Ezzati.

Nearly half of the men in China smoke, and there is a concern the next trend will be an increase in smoking amongst women too. In addition, in more than 70 percent of Chinese homes, people cook and heat their homes with wood, coal and crop residues.

Of the 1.1 billion smokers worldwide, more than 900 million currently live in low-income and middle-income countries and biomass fuels and coal are used by nearly half of the world's population as sources of household energy.