Brittany and Normandy have been facing a major pollution peak since Saturday. How to protect yourself from it?
France is currently recording a significant peak in air pollution in the north, from Finistère to Seine-Maritime. Three Breton departments, Finistère, Côtes-d’Armor and Ille-et-Vilaine, are on red alert with an index of 8 on a scale of 10, i.e. “bad to very bad” air quality. , according to Air Breizh. Morbihan is currently on orange alert, with an index of 6 for “average to mediocre” atmospheric quality. Sunday morning, the cities of Brest, Saint-Brieuc and Saint-Malo, displayed an index of 8.
The situation is expected to worsen in Normandy
The prefectures of Finistère in Seine-Maritime call on motorists to reduce their speed “by 20 km / h on 2×2 lanes”. That of Ille-et-Vilaine activated the “triggering of an alert procedure for an episode of atmospheric pollution by fine particles PM10” throughout the department from Sunday 5 p.m. until Monday midnight. Same thing in the Côtes-d’Armor where a pollution alert procedure was triggered on Saturday and “until further notice”.
TKings of Normandy departments, Manche, Calvados and Seine-Maritime also show a high level of PM10 fine particles in the air. According to the Air Monitoring Agency Atmo Normandythe situation could deteriorate as of tomorrow, Tuesday April 24, since the cities of Caen, Alençon, Cherbourg, Evreux, Le Havre or even Rouen will display an index of 8.
9 out of 10 people in the world breathe polluted air
According to a recent report published in the European Heart Journal, 8.8 million people in the world would have died in 2015 due to air pollution (including 2.8 million in China alone). In fact, 9 out of 10 people in the world breathe polluted air. “This means that air pollution kills more people each year than tobacco, responsible for 7.2 million deaths in 2015 according to the World Health Organization (WHO)”, detailed one of the authors of the report, Professor Thomas Münzel of the University of Mainz (Germany). In Europe, researchers estimate that 790,000 deaths were due to air pollution in 2015.
How to escape this peak of pollution?
Health risks could be mitigated with the use of a home air purifier that contains particulate filters, according to a recent study. Published in the JAMA, she found that three days of using a home air purifier significantly reduces the exposure of older people in urban settings to fine particulate matter. The use of this device has also largely contributed to the reduction of their blood pressure, thus showing that particle filters are potentially cardio-protective.
The purifier does not have to be sophisticated to have positive health effects. “The results show that simple, hands-on intervention using inexpensive indoor air filtration units can help protect those at risk from the adverse health effects of fine particulate air pollution,” says Robert Brook, the study’s lead author.
And in the face of these pollution peaks, we must act. Indeed, as air pollution levels rise, more and more people end up in the emergency room with respiratory problems, according to the largest study ever conducted on the subject. Patients are usually hospitalized because of asthma, COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) and respiratory infections.
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