By: Nyima Sillah
Dam Khan, a medical expert at the Medical Research Council Unit has disclosed that air pollution can affects women fertility and cause other diseases.
Speaking to The Voice newspaper, Mr Khan said: “research has shown that exposure to air pollutants affects women’s fertility. In general, air pollution can cause diseases ranging from respiratory and cardiovascular diseases to eye irritation and skin cancer.”
According to him, in rural African settings, women are disproportionately affected by indoor air pollution and that indoor air pollution is generated within confined environments (including in households).
“The use of biomass (charcoal, firewood) for cooking is common in rural settings and women are the ones doing the cooking. This exposes them to a harmful substance such as particulate matter and carbon monoxide generated from burning of biomass,” he added.
More so, these harmful substances not only affect lung but could also impact the living conditions of infectious disease pathogens living within our bodies.
“The choices we make individually can go a long way in mitigating the impacts of air pollution. This could be basic as cycling or walking to your destination instead of using a car which releases harmful substances to the atmosphere. Secondly, use of cleaner fuels for energy generation. Example of this is using briquettes from plant sources (like banana leave briquettes) for cooking instead of firewood.
“The most recent to my knowledge is a research published in the Scientific Research Journal in March 2022 that investigated the level of common air pollutants in the Greater Banjul Area,” he cited.
He went on saying “among the pollutants investigated were the five pollutants with the strongest evidence for public health concern. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) these are particulate matter, carbon monoxide, ozone, nitrogen oxide, and Sulphur dioxide. The exposure level of carbon monoxide was the highest among the different air pollutants. The gas is also produced from car exhaust and can obstruct oxygen circulation in our bodies.”