LAHORE, May 3: About 40 years ago, a Lahorite could roam about without the fear of contracting diseases related to air pollution. Today he has to think many times before venturing out. There is asthma in the air.

“It was such a beautiful city when I first came to Lahore for education in the 1950s. I spent about 10 years here. There were so few smoke-emitting vehicles on the city roads and so many refreshing trees,” recalls former Quaid-i-Azam University vice-chancellor Prof Dr Mohammad Arslan.

“Unfortunately,” he says, “a large number of trees have been felled in the name of development over the years and that ultimately ranks Lahore among the most polluted cities in the world.” He has developed asthma after he returned to Lahore in 2004 to work as the head of physiology and cell biology department of the University of Health Sciences.

Dr Arslan, who holds massive air pollution responsible for his condition, wonders why the government isn’t paying any heed to the serious issue of pollution which is also causing diseases, like lung cancer, pulmonary fibrosis, emphysema, kidney, heart, hypertension, diabetes, bronchitis, hyperactivity, deafness and sperm damage.

He says he is surprised that the traffic police personnel are not aware of the hazard and are performing the duty without wearing masks.

According to the Punjab Environment Protection Department officials, Lahore is the most polluted district in Punjab followed by Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Multan and Sargodha.

Statistics show that there are around 7.5 million asthma patients in Pakistan.

Dr Afia Husain, who has carried out research on asthma, says asthma and allergy are common diseases caused by an intricate interaction of genetic susceptibility and environmental exposure.

She says that besides air pollution smoking significantly harms almost every major organ of the body and has been directly linked to leukemia, cataracts, pneumonia and cancers of kidney, cervix, pancreas and stomach.

In Lahore, Dr Afia says, the contribution of pollen to asthma disease is 20 per cent as compared to Islamabad. The plain-looking plants produce the types of pollen that commonly cause allergic reactions.

The pollen can drift in from miles away. To save oneself from the attack of asthma one must wear mask when he is exposed to the things he feels allergic and air pollution, she says.