India News and Features Alliance (INFA)

An increasing number of children get seriously affected or killed by pollution, unsafe water and poor sanitation the world over. In many urban centre of the world, a high content of led in the air -- a fall out of the explosive growth in the numbers of fossil fuel driven motor vehicles-- is known to cause a variety of physical and mental disorders among the school-going children. Similarly, polluted and unsafe water kills hundreds of thousands of children across the world. Even the industrially developed countries of Europe are not immune to this global trend.

According to public health experts, environmental pollution and unsafe water are major factors leading to one-third of child and adolescent deaths in many parts of Europe. As it is, pollution from burning coal and wood used to heat individual homes during the peak winter season is a major killer of children in the Central Asian Republic. On the other hand, polluted water and poor sanitation have been found to be the major cause of death in East European countries. "One third of all death of children and adolescents in the European region can be attributed to environmental factors," points out Giorgio Tamburlini of the Institute of Child Health in Trieste, Italy.

On the other hand, an extensive field study conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) comes to the conclusion that one lakh deaths and six million years of healthy life are lost each year in children from birth to the 19th year of age in many parts of Europe. "This is the first assessment of the health effect in children and adolescents of environmental factors in the European region" says a report published in the reputed medical journal Lancet.

Indeed, medical researchers drive home the point that children are more susceptible to the effects of environmental hazards because they live and play closer to the ground and have less control over their environment. About 23,000 children up to four years of age die from pneumonia and other respiratory disorders that have their roots in indoor and outdoor pollution. "Intervention is able to reduce the exposure to children to risk factors, ranging from outdoor and indoor pollution to lack of safe water to unsafe housing and transport are going to produce substantial benefits in terms of disease, disability and death" says Tamburlini.

In a significant finding, a team of scientists in the United Kingdom has proved that the harmful atmospheric pollutants could cross the placenta to affect the developing foetus. According to Prof. Alan Pruce, Professor of Medical Physics at the University of Bristol, the unborn child is particularly sensitive to the effects of the mother's response to environmental agents through placenta transfer. As pointed out by Pruce, "We found that foetal organ concentration can exceed those of the mothers which may have implications due to the increment sensitivity of the foetus. The exact levels are as yet unknown but we know that childhood leukaemia is initiated ".

It has also been demonstrated that environmental pollutants can play a role in causing damages to the genetic material in a child in the womb if its mother breathes polluted air. "This is the first study to show that environmental exposure to specific combination of pollutants during pregnancy can result in chromosomal abnormalities in foetal tissue" says Kenneth Oldem, Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

As researchers observe the damage to the chromosomes tends to linger, making people more susceptible to cancerous disorders. Many studies in various parts of the world, have come to the solid conclusion that pollutants could cause genetic changes leading to the onset of leukaemia and other forms of cancer." While we cannot estimate the precise increase in the cancer risk, our findings underscore the need for policy makers to take appropriate measures to protect children from these avoidable exposure" says Dr. Frederic Perera of the Columbia University's Centre for Children's Environmental Health in New York.

Studies carried elsewhere in the US go to show that the school going children exposed to diesel exhaust fumes while traveling to the schools during a school year of up to 200 days, had to face a higher risk of respiratory disorders. Nearer home, a study of about 20,000 school going children carried out in Bangalore showed that they faced an increased risk of respiratory disorders. According to Ameer Ahmed, an environmental engineer the high prevalence of diesel particulate matter in the air in cities such as Bangalore is a matter of serious concern. He feels that there are still no stringent quality checks on emission levels of the vehicles in India. ---- INFA