Air pollution along with COVID-19 may worsen situation, increase mortality: AIIMS Director

Amid reports of an increase in air pollution levels in the national capital, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has said that high levels of air pollution will aggravate the situation of COVID-19 while iterating that it will lead to an increase in mortality.

While speaking with ANI on Wednesday, AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria asserted that increased air pollution, especially during winters, can aid the virus to survive for longer duration which leads to more people getting affected by the virus. He also added that both, the pollution and the virus affect the lungs and blood vessels, thereby aggravating to the impact and affecting more people.

"If you have high levels of air pollution, especially during winter months, then due to pollution and inversion, pollutants stay at ground level for a longer period of time and the virus can also survive for a longer period and therefore can spread to others. Also, air pollution itself causes inflammation in the lungs, it causes inflammation in blood vessels, and this has been documented in a large number of studies. COVID-19 also affects lungs and blood vessels so a combination of air pollution and COVID-19 can cause more severe disease," Guleria said.

AIIMS director cites research

"There was a study done in 2002-03, during the SARS outbreak in China, which showed that for every increase in PM 2.5 by 1 microgram/ per meter cube there was an increase in mortality due to SARS infection by about 8 per cent," Guleria said.

He even cited studies conducted in Italy and the US which were among the few countries where COVID-19 impact was aggravated beyond control with severe mortalities and caused severe stress on the health infrastructure in those countries.

"A more recent study done in northern Italy during COVID-19 time, where they looked at different districts in northern Italy and compared the mortality with air pollution again showed that there was an increase in mortality in areas where pollution levels were high," he said.

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"Now there is another study, which is pre-print, done by Howard School of Public Health in the US. They have looked at different counties and tried to compare mortality because of COVID-19 and air pollution, and after doing corrections for other biases, which can be there, again the study shows that there can be an 8 per cent increase in COVID related mortality with every 1 microgram per meter cube increase in PM 2.5," he added.

Encouraging people to wear masks and follow social distancing, he also urged the people to celebrate Diwali without bursting crackers. 

Taking the deteriorating air quality and the sudden surge in COVID-19 cases in the national capital on November 5, the Delhi government has prohibited the sale and use of crackers during Diwali, followed by the National Green Tribunal's (NGT) total ban on the sale and use of firecrackers in Delhi from midnight of November 9 to midnight of November 30. A bench headed by NGT chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel informed that this order will also apply to all cities and towns in the country where the average Air Quality Index (AQI) during November (as per available data of last year) falls under 'poor' or 'worse' category. 

(With ANI inputs)