IQAir AirVisual has ranked Dhaka as the city with the worst air pollution with an Air Quality Index (AQI) score of 188, classified as unhealthy, on Sunday morning.
The rankings also mentioned Pakistan’s Lahore and India’s Delhi with an AQI score of 178 and 176 respectively in the second and third spots in the list.
An AQI value between 151 and 200 signifies that residents of a respective area may begin to experience health effects, while members of sensitive groups may experience more serious complications.
World’s most polluted country
At the same time, AirVisual’s World Air Quality Report 2019 also ranked Bangladesh as the most contaminated country in the world for PM2.5 exposure.
In Bangladesh, the AQI is based on five criteria pollutants - Particulate Matter (PM10 and PM2.5), NO2, CO, SO2 and Ozone.
The report has been based on data from the world’s largest centralized platform for real-time air quality data, combining efforts from thousands of initiatives run by citizens, communities, companies, non-profit organizations and governments.
It also includes only PM2.5 (fine particulate matter) data as acquired from ground-based air quality monitoring stations with high data availability. The assessment also tracked exposure to household air pollution from burning fuels such as coal, wood, or biomass for cooking.
Air pollution consistently ranks among the top risk factors for death and disability worldwide. Breathing polluted air has long been recognized as increasing a person’s chances of developing heart disease, chronic respiratory diseases, lung infections, and cancer, according to the report.
As per the World Health Organization (WHO), the air pollution kills an estimated seven million people worldwide every year largely as a result of increased mortality from stroke, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer and acute respiratory infections.
Over 80% living in urban areas which monitor air pollution are exposed to air quality levels that exceed WHO guideline limits, with low- and middle-income countries most at risk, WHO estimated.
