Air pollution worsening underlying diseases, it's a silent killer: Guleria

As Delhi breathes its toxic air, former director Dr Randeep AIIMS Guleria, who heads the department of pulmonary medicine and sleep disorders at the institute, tells Somrita Ghosh that pollution is a silent killer that is worsening underlying diseases. He rues the failure of government policies because of a flawed process of formulating them.

How do you think the air pollution crisis in Delhi has impacted our lives?

■ We are observing two things: one is the acute effect on the elderly and children their hospital visits have gone up. I also know people who leave the city during this time for other parts of country, for instance southern India, because the air quality is better there. Data also shows that heart attacks go up during this time because of inflammation in the blood vessels caused by PM 2.5 and other ultrafine particulate matter.

What long-term effects of this severe air pollution have you seen?

■ Our studies have shown that on 70-80% of days -leaving that one year of Covidthe AQI has either been poor, very poor or severe. So, people living in the Indo-Gangetic plains are continuously breathing air which is of poor quality and that starts affecting their overall health.