Forest fires in surrounding districts make Nepal capital Kathmandu world’s most polluted city
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“Ongoing forest fires will not only burn forests but also damage our ecology, affect wild and endangered animals and will severely impact human health.”
Nepal’s air quality has been deteriorating.
According to global air monitoring platform IQAir, Kathmandu ranked as the most polluted city in the world over the weekend, with smoke and haze covering the Valley.
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Very unhealthy air quality means health warnings of emergency conditions, with the entire population likely to be affected and many may experience serious health effects.
Air pollution is known to cause various respiratory illnesses – pneumonia, bronchitis, conjunctivitis, skin allergies, stroke and heart problems, in the short term, and ulcers and cancer of the lungs and intestine, kidney disease and heart problems, in the long run.
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Health experts warn that worsening air quality could lead to an increase in hospitalisation cases and even deaths among people infected with the coronavirus.
“If patients suffering from a respiratory illness get infected with coronavirus, the chances of infection severity and deaths increase,” said Dr Niraj Bam, an associate professor at the Institute of Medicine.
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Nepal’s valuable forests, which took more than six decades of restoration, face a worsening wildfire reality with scarce resources and nearly zero strategies to prevent or contain them.
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