Hyderabad: Indoor pollution at homes and closed environments due to burning of mosquito coils and smoke from polluting cooking fuel, cigarette and burning of other essence is found to have an adverse impact on the health of the people in the house.
Researchers put cigarettes and mosquito coils in a controlled chamber in the laboratory to monitor heavy metals and particulate matter that they released in the chamber and the results were published in journal of SN Applied Sciences.
The researchers found that maximum concentration was of particulate matter 2.5 and particulate matter 10. Heavy metals in terms of aluminum, chromium and tin were found in mosquito coils.
Copper, zinc, manganese, nickel and lead were found in high levels in cigarette smoke. The residual ash of cigarette was found to have many chemicals and it was recorded easily while concentration of metals like cadmium, vanadium and selenium was below detection limits.
Dr Ajay Taneja lead researcher of the study, noted that smoke-generating mosquito coils must be replaced with non-smoke mosquito controlling methods as the exposure and respiratory health risks can be reduced.
Dr Vijay Kumar Chennamchetty, senior consultant interventional pulmonologist at Apollo Hospitals, explained, “There is now ample evidence of the manner in which outdoor and indoor pollution is affecting the quality of life. The high-risk category is those suffering from heart, lung disease, pregnant women, older adults and children who have to be protected from these exposures as it would affect their lung functioning and lead to complications if they are already in an immune-compromised state.”
