With Delhi’s air quality falling into the ‘very poor’ category, a former All India Institute Of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) doctor has issued a stark warning to residents, urging those who can to leave the city temporarily until pollution levels improve. Senior pulmonologist Dr Gopi Chand Khilnani has advised Delhi residents, especially the elderly and those with chronic lung disease or chronic heart disease, to leave Delhi for six to eight weeks or relocate if they can afford it.
The advice comes as a thick blanket of smog blankets Delhi and surrounding areas, triggering celebrations of the post-Diwali health crisis.
In an interview with The Indian Express, Dr Gopi Chand Khilnani said that both indoor and outdoor pollution have led to an increase in cases of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancer among adults.
“Also, the incidence of lung cancer is increasing in younger patients,” he said, adding: “In the long term, air pollution affects the lungs as a whole – lung capacity and lung immunity decrease.”
He also emphasized that polluted air damages not only the lungs, but also the heart, brain, kidneys, intestines and immune system.
“There is an increased incidence of heart attacks and strokes, and there is more hypertension and diabetes. There is some evidence that rheumatic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis are also more severe,” he said.
“There is evidence that air pollution leads to severe forms of pneumonia, whether viral or bacterial, leading to high mortality.”
Do air purifiers help?
The doctor explained that air purifiers work best when they run continuously in a closed room because frequent door openings reduce their effectiveness.
“Air purifiers have a filter, and good air purifiers have an adsorbent that is expected to absorb gases, so the air that comes out is likely to be clean. A good quality, capacity air purifier should cover the volume of the room. It should be on all the time,” he said.
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“The most important thing is that the room must be closed at all times – its effect is canceled out if the door is opened more than once for people to enter and leave.”
What can residents of Delhi do?
Asked how Delhi residents can protect themselves amid the post-Diwali pollution crisis, Dr. Khilnani advised those who could afford to leave the city for a while to do so.
“Everyone can’t afford to leave Delhi because it’s not easy. But those who have chronic lung disease or chronic heart disease, those who are on oxygen, and those who have the ability and the ability to go abroad or to less polluted places, I very safely advise them to leave Delhi for 6-8 weeks from now to protect themselves from dyspnea, needing oxygen,” and so on and so forth.
Delhi’s pollution crisis
Delhi’s air quality worsened on Saturday, November 1, slipping into the ‘very poor’ category with an overall air quality index (AQI) of 303, compared to 218 recorded a day earlier.
According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) classification, an AQI between zero and 50 is considered “good”, 51-100 as “satisfactory”, 101-200 as “moderate”, 201-300 as “bad”, 301-400 as “very bad” and 401.
