Experts say environment has serious effects on human health in a number of ways, either directly by exposing people to harmful carbon-agents, or indirectly, by disrupting life-sustaining ecosystems. They say that the interaction between human health and the environmental hazards has extensively been researched and studied.
The World Health Organisation (WHO), in its recent report, said that 13 million deaths were caused annually by preventable environmental causes. The report estimates that 24 per cent of the global disease burden (healthy life per year loss) and 23 per cent of all deaths i.e. premature mortality are attributable to environmental factors, with the environmental burden of diseases, for being 15 times higher in developing countries than in developed countries, occur due to differences in exposure to environmental risks and non-availability of access to healthcare amid the environmental reasons. The report further said that five children in developing countries in every one minute die from Malaria or Diarrhoea.
Likewise, 100 children die every hour, as a result of exposure to indoor smoke from solid or fossil fuels and nearly 1800 people die every day in mega cities of the developing countries as a result of exposure to endangered urban air pollution. And, every month, nearly 19,000 people in developing countries die from unintentional poisonings. Noted environmentalist Dr. Shafqat Munir Ahmad told media that huge economic development and multiplying population is resulting in prevailing environmental degradation. Intensification of industrialization, agriculture and increasing energy use were the most severe driving forces of environmental health problems. For developing countries, severe lack of public infrastructure, such as access to clean drinking water, lack of healthcare, sanitation issues were generating due to emerging problems of industrial pollution, as mushrooming of industrial units without planning are creating significant issues of public health, he added. Climate change is directly posing threats to human health and well-being and this is rapidly emerging as a serious health concern worldwide, he said adding that in year 2000, climate change was estimated to be responsible for approximately 2.4 percent of worldwide diarrhoea and 6 percent of malaria. But now, according to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) third assessment report, the world temperature is expected to further rise during the current century, implying more and increased health threats for human populations, especially in low-income countries. Regarding the socio-environmental impacts in Lahore, noted expert Safdar Ali Shirazi said that for the past few decades, due to rapid urbanisation, the provincial metropolis has lost its aesthetically important urban tress, vegetation and around all green scenic cover. He revealed that the loss of green cover and vegetation has been witnessed vanishing at an astonishing rate in many union councils of the city.
Former LDA director Aslam Langah told media that environmental health hazards are not limited to the developing world, rather environmental risks have also been generated in wealthier countries and are primarily attributed to urban air and water pollution.
