Bhopal/A media meet for International Day of Clean Air for Blues skies was organized today by UNICEF, wherein Dr. Rajashree Bajaj, State Nodal Officer, National Program For Climate Change & Human Health (NPCCHH ), Directorate for Health Services shared a presentation on the challenges of air pollution and with a call to Create awareness pollution and deaths due to air pollution – Impact on Respiratory illness and Cardiovascular diseases among adults , women and children.
She in her presentation spoke on that in Madhya Pradesh as per district composite vulnerability data as per slide from Centre for Climate Change & Sustainable Development Coordinator, State Knowledge Management, Centre on Climate Change, EPCO, Department of Environment, GoMP, 8 districts are in very high vulnerability, 17 in high vulnerability, 11 in moderate, 11 in low vulnerability and 3 in very low vulnerability.
She added that one of the challenges of Indoor pollution is household challah using fire wood and is one of the causes of respiratory challenges. In Madhya Pradesh Households using clean fuel for cooking (%), State average of 29.6 % with Dindori at 4.0 % while Bhopal at 84.9 %. She requested to media and radio jockeys part of the meet that it is important to bring the challenge of air pollution and how as community and individuals we can play a role in the same.
Dr Vandana Bhatia, UNICEF Health Specialist spoke on the challenges for children due to air pollution and a call to decrease facility and indoor pollution which includes hospital, schools, work place and homes and need to monitor impact of air pollution and health by monitoring Out Patient Department (OPD) and In patient Data(IPD) for Respiratory and Cardiovascular illness during months with high AQI.
Anil Gulati. Communication Specialist, UNICEF, Madhya Pradesh coordinated the meet and said that we are marking this for the first time and call to increase discourse on air pollution and its impact on lives of people particularly children and women.
