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Indoor Air Pollution (IAP)
PROBLEMS
& Consequences
Indoor air pollution from
household energy ranks as the fourth leading health risk in
the developing countries. Breathing elevated levels of smoke
more than doubles a child's risk of serious respiratory
infection and may also be associated with adverse pregnancy
outcomes (e.g. stillbirth and low-weight babies)
and DALYs.
The invisible Killer in the Kitchen
More than three billion people in the developing countries
cook in their homes using traditional open fire and stoves,
burning biomass fuels like wood, dung, carbon and crop
waste. Next to carbon dioxide (40%), black carbon from such
cooking fires accounts for 18% of today’s global greenhouse
gas emissions.
Besides its significant contribution to
global warming, the effects on the health and the lives of
the people in these countries are even more detrimental and
devastating, causing an annual mortality rate of 1.6 million
– thereby affecting mostly women and children (85%).
Replacing traditional cooking fires in developing countries
with clean cook stoves is seen as a “quick fix” that
provides developing countries time to get a handle on CO2
emissions and immediately improve the health conditions of
millions of people for years to come.
Air Quality
Mothers and children are exposed to hazardous air pollutants
through emissions of carbon monoxide and fine particulate
matter.
Air pollution from cooking with solid fuel is a key risk
factor for childhood acute lower respiratory infections (for
example, pneumonia) as well as many other respiratory,
cardiovascular, and ocular diseases.
In Ghana, exposure to indoor air pollution (commonly
measured by the pollutants carbon monoxide and fine
particles) is responsible for the annual loss of 502,000
disability-adjusted life-years (DALY).
The DALY is a Standard metric used by the World Health
Organization (WHO) to indicate the burden of death and
illness due to a specific risk factor. The WHO also
estimates that exposure to indoor air pollution is
responsible for 16,600 deaths per year in Ghana.
Three meals cooking a day by traditional 3-stone fire is equal to smoking 3
packets (60 sticks) of cigarettes. Children and women are the victim of
resulting from uncontrolled use of wood fuel by cooking
the traditional way. |
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"providing
improved drinking water and cook stoves to protect and save lives
is our business"
The Problem of Unsafe Drinking Water
1 billion people risk their lives and health every day by
drinking from contaminated sources: they are deprived of their basic
human right.
Here the BioSand Filter (BSF) can make a difference, providing safe drinking
water, right where it's needed most: at household level, because it effectively
purifies contaminated water.
The Problem of Unsafe Drinking Water
Nearly 4 million people across the developing world die
each year from unsafe drinking water and almost half of those are
children. Lack of access to safe drinking water is the largest cause of death
for children in the developing world.
More
than 1 million people die annually as a result of diarrheal diseases.
Although mortality from diarrheal disease is decreasing globally, morbidity is
not.
The average child in developing countries experiences three or more cases
of diarrheal disease each year, accounting for up to 4 billion cases annually.
Diarrheal diseases make up 4% of the global burden of disease.
A recent review
suggested that the environment and environmental risk factors play an important
role in the global burden of diseases. This review estimated that 94% of diarrheal diseases are attributed to a "reasonably modifiable environment" and
suggested that interventions can be made in water, sanitation, and hygiene in an
attempt to decrease the burden of diarrheal disease.
Fetching Water from the stream for
daily need
Village near Accra
CookClean
provides
improved drinking water and cook stoves to protect and save lives
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