The air quality is worsening

Nguyen Canh Loc from the HCMC Natural Resources and the Environment Monitoring Center, said that the city, with 13 million residents and many industrial zones, is facing serious air and noise pollution.

The monitoring in 12 spots in the city in 2017 showed that air pollution caused by suspended dust was up to 68 percent, and by noise to 100 percent. Both factors exceeded Vietnamese standards.

There are three causes. First, the air gets polluted because of transport activities. About 7.6 million motorbikes and 796,000 cars were in circulation in 2017, not including vehicles from other localities. The number of vehicles is expected to increase by 30 percent by 2020.

Second, industrial production activities create pollution. There are 1,000 large factories and tens of thousands of small workshops.

Third, the air is polluted as a result of urban life, mostly from construction sites and service activities.

The research work by Vu Xuan Dan from the HCMC Center for Labor and Environment Protection puts emphasis on air pollution caused by dust.

Meanwhile, other researchers pointed out that indoors pollution is also serious because of people’s habit of smoking and using fuel that produce smoke.

Le Thi Tuyet Lan from the HCMC Asthma, Allergy and Clinical Immunology Association stressed that pollution is the biggest reason that causes diseases. 

In 2015, pollution caused 16 percent of total deaths in the globe, three times higher than the number of deaths from AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in total, and 15 times higher than deaths from war. 

About 92 percent of deaths related to pollution are found in low- and average-income countries.

Lan said that air pollution is also one of the causes of increased number of asthma patients, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, respiratory infections, respiratory disorders in sleep, and lung cancer. 

Meanwhile, Dr Cung Thi Tuyet Anh from the HCMC Cancer Association said lung cancer has direct relation with air pollution. Experimental studies in animals show that over 500 chemical components in exhaust gas can cause genetic mutations. 

Clinical studies also found leukemia DNA damage in patients living in polluted urban areas, and found DNA damage in lymphocytes and nasal mucosa, abnormal changes at cellular level. DNA damage is the cause of many types of cancer.

According to Dang Xuan Hung from the HCM City Hearing Association, the noise intensity in HCMC is 6-20 dBA higher than the permitted level. Vehicles are one of the "culprits" causing noise.

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