The Health Ministry has identified the importance of establishing a Special Task Force for the prevention of respiratory diseases Deputy Health Minister Lalith Dissanayake said yesterday .

He said that the ministry will implement a mechanism to promote in treating asthma. The deputy minister was speaking at a ceremony organized by the National Chest and Respiratory Diseases Prevention Program to mark the World Asthma Day at the BMICH yesterday.

After Haryana ban, illegal mining shifts to Sikar’s hills
Who’s The Quarry?

More than 400 active leases in the Sikar belt
1,200 trucks move out of Rajasthan Aravallis daily
In Dabla alone, 50 ha of land mined
Area has five small rivers, three clogged with sludge.

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The number of people affected by asthma has shown an alarming increase in Sri Lanka due to increased air pollution in the cities. This was revealed on Thursday (2) by Dr. Thalatha Liyanage, Director of the Non Communicable Diseases (NCD) Unit of the Health Education Bureau.

She told The Island that climate change might lead to more asthma-related health problems among Sri Lankans.

China's worsening air pollution, after decades of unbridled economic growth, cost the country $112 billion in 2005 in lost economic productivity, a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has found.

The figure, which also took into account people's lost leisure time because of illness or death, was $22 billion in 1975, according to researchers at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

More than a million people in the Los Angeles region are exposed to undisclosed, unhealthy levels of air pollution every day, according to a lawsuit filed today by Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and Communities for a Better Environment.

A U.S. federal appeals court on Friday issued a last-minute order to delay the January 1 implementation of stricter federal limits on pollution from coal-fired plants, providing a temporary win for utilities worried about the cost of implementation.

In a blow to environmental groups, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted a request to stay the Environmental Protection Agency's Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, pending further court review.

More than 20 years ago, Congress ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate toxic air pollution. It's done that for most industries, but not the biggest polluters — coal and oil-burning power plants.

The EPA now plans to change that later this week, by setting new rules to limit mercury and other harmful pollution from power plants.

When Congress first told the EPA to regulate toxic air pollution in 1990, pediatrician Lynn Goldman was investigating the impact of mercury from mining operations on Native American families living near a contaminated lake.

Jaipur: Pollution due to firecrackers during the Diwali festivities has created a serious problem for asthma patients in the past two days. The asthma patients who got exposed to firecrackers’ smoke landed in hospitals to get immediate relief for breathlessness.

Doctors had warned asthma patients to avoid firecrackers and moreover as the season is changing there are high chances of getting serious asthmatic attacks.