Delhi: Spike in emergency visits as air worsens, suggests AIIMS study

While the other institutes are yet to complete the research, the country’s top medical institute has got the initial findings, indicating a correlation between pollutant levels and daily percentage of patients with acute respiratory symptoms visiting the emergency ward.

At AIIMS, the research was conducted from June 2017 to May 2019. More than 56,000 children were screened in the paediatric emergency room and around 70,000 adults in the main emergency room. Approximately 20-30% had respiratory symptoms.

“We observed that there was a rise of 20-40% in patients visiting the emergency ward as air quality worsened. We also observed an increase in the number of admissions even when pollutants were lower than permissible limits. There is definite data to suggest that when air quality is bad, it leads to increase in admissions both in the paediatric and adult age group. The concern we have is that many of these patients become sick and require ICU care. Indirectly, it also leads to higher morbidity and mortality. We have patients whose condition worsened during this time,” said Dr Randeep Guleria, AIIMS director and principal investigator of the study.

Daily pollution levels were obtained from the Delhi Pollution Control Committee. Based on the data, researchers divided the days into worst, moderate and low pollution levels. Experts said the values of pollutants were mostly above permissible levels throughout the year. Data also showed that patients visited the hospital even six days after pollution levels had subsided.

Most common problems for which patients came to the emergency ward included an increase in cough, cold, breathlessness, wheezing and respiratory difficulty. Among adults, the increased rate of admissions were more common in the elderly and those with underlying illnesses such as asthma and COPD.