Clean air and environmental experts from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and other parts of the world are warning that the next pandemic could be caused by air pollution if stringent measures are not implemented by governments and authorities.
According to professionals, 90% of the air breathed in Ghana and West Africa is polluted, raising alarms about the health implications for human livelihoods.
Speaking at the West African School on Air Quality and Pollution Prevention at KNUST, the Country Lead for Clean Air Fund, Desmond Appiah, lamented that political parties in Ghana do not include clear strategies for tackling air pollution in their manifestos, calling for a critical review to address this growing concern.
“We are seeing continually diseases that if we combine the sources, the air pollution is higher than malaria and HIV combined. So, please, the issues we are dealing with are not a minor thing. However, we do not see that people are even asking for clear air, we don’t demand it. We take it like it is one of those things. We will be in the house and people will be burning refuse, the smoke will be coming into our rooms, we are lighting the refuse by ourselves and we will be inhaling thinking that is all alright.
“But we have a choice. I am a firm believer that the solution to air pollution is not just science. The solutions are not science. If you go through the manifestos of all the political parties, since 1992, nobody has talked about air pollution before. Even this new one that they are bringing. So, it still means that it is not there and we need to bring it to that level so that it becomes part of the conversations that we have. We want to advocate for solutions and not just for talking, but for solutions. So that when the scientists have done the research, we should be able to process it so that everybody knows that there are solutions,” he stated.
