Air pollution increases the risk of getting sick from COVID-19

 

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/934879

 

 News Release 17-Nov-2021
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal)

 

Long-term exposure to air pollution is associated with a higher risk of developing COVID-19 among those people who get infected, shows a study led by the Barcelona Institute of Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the ”la Caixa” Foundation, and co-led by the GCAT| Genomes for Life-Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP), Badalona. The study, published in Environment Health Perspectives, provides further evidence on the health benefits of reducing air pollution.

A series of studies suggest that regions with higher pre-pandemic levels of air pollution had a higher incidence of COVID-19 cases and deaths. However, the reasons for this associations are not yet clear; air pollution could favor airborne transmission of the virus, or it could increase an individual’s susceptibility to infection or disease. “The problem is that previous studies were based on reported cases, which had been diagnosed, but missed all the asymptomatic or undiagnosed cases,” says Manolis Kogevinas, ISGlobal researcher and first author of the study.

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