GENEVA: Air pollution kills an estimated 600,000 children every year and causing symptoms ranging from loss of intelligence to obesity and ear infections but there is a limited amount parents can do, a World Health Organization report said on Monday.
Parents should try to avoid household air pollution by using less polluting fuels for cooking and heating and not smoking but to reduce child exposure to ambient pollution they should need to lobby politicians to clean up the environment, WHO experts said.
“Polluted air is poisoning millions of children and ruining their lives,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement. Large parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America are among the worst affected.
“This is inexcusable. Every child should be able to breathe clean air so they can grow and fulfil their full potential.”
The WHO report, “Prescribing clean air,” summarised the latest scientific knowledge on the effect on children of air pollution, which affects about 93 percent of children globally.
Maria Neira, WHO’s head of environmental determinants of health, said the worrying findings highlighted in the study, including evidence of pollution causing stillbirth and preterm birth, as well as diseases into adulthood, should lead to policy changes globally.
“Something that is critical as well is this issue of the neuro-development,” she said.
“Imagine that our children will have less cognitive IQ. We are talking about putting at risk a new generation of having a reduced IQ. This is not only new but terribly shocking.”
There was clear, consistent evidence of an association between ambient air pollution and otitis media, or ear infections, the study said, as well as some evidence of it causing obesity and insulin resistance in children.
Air pollution can also cause childhood cancers, asthma, poor lung function, pneumonia and other types of acute lower respiratory infection, the report said.
WHO says air pollution kills 600,000 children every year
WHO says air pollution kills 600,000 children every year
- Air pollution can also cause childhood cancers, asthma, poor lung function, pneumonia and other types of acute lower respiratory infection, the report said
UK interior minister insists asylum reforms ‘fair’ amid blowback
- Mahmood argued in a speech that she was “restoring order and control” to Britain’s borders
- Amnesty International called the latest measure a “punitive blow”
LONDON: Britain’s interior minister doubled down Thursday on her tough stance on immigration despite criticism from charities and unease within the ruling Labour party that it is shedding left-wing voters.
Shabana Mahmood announced that asylum seekers who break the law or work illegally will be thrown out of government-funded accommodation and lose their support payments.
The policy forms part of a major overhaul of migration rules announced late last year and modelled on Denmark’s strict asylum system that aims to slash irregular migration to the UK.
Mahmood argued in a speech that she was “restoring order and control” to Britain’s borders and that her overhaul of the asylum was “firm but fair,” adding she would open new and safe legal routes.
But Amnesty International called the latest measure a “punitive blow” that “risks forcing people into destitution, homelessness and exploitation while they wait for their claims to be decided.”
Mahmood’s reforms are widely seen as an attempt to stem support for the hard-right Reform UK party, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage.
It has topped opinion polls for a year, in part because of the government’s failure to stop thousands of migrants from arriving in England from northern France on small boats.
But her stance has also been credited with contributing to Labour losing support to the progressive Green party, which won a local election in a traditional Labour heartland last week.
Mahmood said there was a middle path between Farage’s “nightmare pulling up the drawbridge and shutting out the world” and Green Party leader Zack Polanski’s “fairy tale of open borders.”
Her reform that makes refugee status temporary, including for accompanied children, came into force this week.
The status will be reviewed every 30 months, with refugees forced to return to their home countries once those are deemed safe.
They will also need to wait for 20 years, instead of the current five, before they can apply for permanent residency.
She also announced earlier this week that the government would stop issuing education visas to nationals from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan.
It said there had been a surge in asylum applications by students from those countries and almost 135,000 asylum seekers in total had entered the UK using legal routes since 2021.
