press trust of india
New Delhi, Oct 20: India had the world’s highest number of deaths from air, water and other forms of pollution in 2015, according to a study published by the medical journal ‘The Lancet’ Friday. The study report showed that pollution killed 2.5 million people in the country.
Most deaths were due to non-communicable diseases caused by pollution, such as heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), researchers said.
According to the study, air pollution was the biggest contributor to pollution-related fatalities worldwide in 2015: It was linked to 6.5 million deaths, while water pollution (1.8 million deaths) and workplace-related pollution (0.8 million deaths) posed the next largest risks.
Researchers, including those from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Delhi, and Icahn School of Medicine in the US, pointed out that almost 92 per cent pollution-related deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries. It showed that in rapidly industrialising countries such as India, Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, Madagascar and Kenya, pollution accounted for up to one in four deaths.
However, even China with its 1.8 million deaths was behind India in pollution-related deaths. According to the study, pollution caused welfare losses to the tune of $4.6 trillion each year globally, which is the equivalent to 6.2 per cent of global economic output.