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October 29, 2018

More than 90% of world’s children breathe toxic air, report says, as India prepares for most polluted season

CNN quotes EPIC's 2017 study that Delhi residents can live as much as nine years longer if the city met WHO standards.
By
Mary McDougall

Around 93% of the world’s children under 15 years of age breathe air that is so polluted it puts their health and development at serious risk, accounting for 1.8 billion children, according to a report published by the World Health Organization ahead of its first global conference on air pollution and health in Geneva.

In 2016, 600,000 children were estimated to have died from acute lower respiratory infections caused by polluted air.

Air pollution is one of the leading threats to health in children under 5, accounting for almost one in 10 deaths among this age group, the report reveals.

The most recent air pollution data from WHO released in March gave India the distinction of having the world’s 10 most polluted cities.
Delhi’s air is so polluted that residents could live as much as nine years longer if Delhi met WHO standards, estimated the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago in a study published in 2017.