Rising air pollution levels spell trouble for coronavirus patients

As the dangerous mix of coronavirus and rising air pollution spells trouble for people, doctors are seeing almost a 30-40 per cent increase in the number of patients reporting with lung ailments, many of them still recovering from Covid-19.

“Pollution has not made it any easier, especially for patients who have not fully recovered from Covid since the lungs become weak and the immunity is low. About a month ago, we were getting only Covid patients and now there is a mix of other respiratory diseases,” said Manoj Goel, director, Pulmonology, Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurugram.  

A patient with bronchitis or asthma as well as Covid can potentially make the case much more severe, doctors say.

A study (“Regional and Global Contributions of Air Pollution to Risk of Death from Covid-19”) published recently in the journal Cardiovascular Research on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology said that about 15 per cent of the deaths worldwide from Covid-19 may be linked to long-term exposure to air pollution.

“The Covid virus attaches with the PM2.5 particles and also remains suspended in the air for a very long time. The direct impact of air pollution is on the immunity of the lungs,” said Vivek Nangia, principal director and head, Max Super Speciality Hospital, New Delhi.

The cocktail of air pollution and Covid would have an overall adverse effect on health, leading to greater vulnerability and less resilience to the virus. It also makes the post-Covid care upon discharge of a patient more complicated.

“The cases we are getting in the emergency are more severe these days. Patient scans often show more damaged lungs. The disease is more progressive,” said Akshay Budhraja senior pulmonologist at Aakash Healthcare, Delhi.

Another study by Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health that looked at more than 3,000 counties across the US said that someone who lives for decades in a county with high levels of fine particulate pollution is 8 per cent more likely to die from Covid-19 than someone who lives in a region that has just one unit (one microgram per cubic metre) less of such pollution.

“The treatment becomes difficult since it is hard to diagnose Covid on the basis of symptoms alone. The dose of steroid to be given for Covid is higher compared to other breathing disorders. We have to balance it correctly,” Budhraja added.

Satyanarayana Mysore, head of interventional pulmonology, Manipal Hospitals and part of Karnataka’s Covid task force, said that there is a greater incidence of people with upper respiratory tract viral infections not amounting to Covid coming through. “Unfortunately, even if you get a cold now, you will have to go through the exercise of getting a swab done to rule out Covid infection,” Mysore added.