Air pollution claims 350,000 lives in China a year: report

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2014-01-09

A thick smog covers Beijing hindering visibility on Dec. 24, 2013.
(File photo/CNS)

In a recent article published in the Lancet, Chinese experts claim that air pollution causes at least 350,000 premature deaths in China every year, reports Guangzhou's 21st Century Business Review.

The article entitled China Tackles the Health Effects of Air Pollution was published in the Lancet, the world's most authoritative medical journal, on Dec. 14 last year, and was written by experts such as former health minister Chen Zhu, and Wang Jinnan, director of Environmental Planning Institute and the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences.

Based on two previous reports made by the World Bank and World Health Organization, the report concluded that air pollution causes 350,000 to 500,000 premature deaths on the mainland a year. The new figures are much lower than those of a previous article, Global Burden of Disease Study 2010, published in the Lancet in Dec. 13, 2012.

The 2012 article, based on research from 488 researchers at 303 institutes across 50 countries, suggested that air pollution with PM2.5 particles in 2010 caused 1.2 million deaths and a loss of 25 million healthy years of life from the population. PM2.5 are airborne particles measuring less than 2.5 microns in diameter, which can pose health risks.

The previous report did not overestimate the number of deaths caused by air pollution, said Dr Yang Gonghuan, deputy director general of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, who was also one of the report's authors. He said that its data included research on particle matter less than 2.5 micrometers in size as well as PM10 particles, whereas the new report focuses mainly on PM10.

Studies regarding the influence of air pollution on health have been hampered by a lack of direct evidence, the paper said. The amount of particle matter less than 2.5 micrometers in size was unclear between 2007 and 2010 due to lack of monitoring data, said Wang Wuyi, chairman of the International Geographical Union's health and environment committee. He added that China will be able to obtain comprehensive data on the PM2.5 particles across the country in 2016.

However, reports have shown fine particles less than 2.5 micrometer have become the fourth largest danger to public health, while the lung cancer mortality rate between 2004 and 2005 was 464.8% higher than that between 1973 and 1975. Meanwhile, the recent report suggests that China can prevent an annual 200,000 premature deaths caused by air pollution if it reduced the amount of PM10 fine particles in cities to 40 ug/m3.