Shawdesh Desk:

With an air quality index score of 84 at 9:15am on Thursday, Dhaka ranked 19th on the list of cities worldwide with the worst air quality.

Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Kinshasa, Indonesia’s Jakarta and Vietnam’s Hanoi occupied the first three spots on the list, with AQI scores of 179, 167 and 137, respectively.

Dhaka has long grappled with air pollution issues. Its air quality usually turns unhealthy in the winter and improves during the monsoon.

Air pollution consistently ranks among the top risk factors for death and disability worldwide.

Air pollution is increasingly impacting human health and is now the second leading global risk factor for premature death, according to the State of Global Air report published in partnership with the UN Children’s Fund.

The fifth edition of the report, released by the Health Effects Institute on Wednesday, revealed that air pollution caused 8.1 million deaths worldwide in 2021 and many millions are dealing with debilitating chronic diseases.

Furthermore, it found that children under five are particularly vulnerable to air pollution, leaving over 700,000 in this age group dead in 2021.

As per the World Health Organisation, air pollution kills an estimated seven million people worldwide every year, largely as a result of increased mortality from stroke, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer and acute respiratory infections.