International Centre for Energy,
Environment and Development (ICEED) has disclosed that 93,000 Nigerians
die annually as a result of smoke inhaled while cooking with firewood,
with women and children as the most affected persons. ICEED’s Executive
Director in Nigeria, Mr. Ewah Otu Eleri revealed that a 2012 study
report of the World Health Organisation (WHO) showed that deaths from
firewood smoke is the third highest killer in the country after malaria
(225,000) and HIV (192,000). He attributed the ugly trend to lack of
access to cooking gas and kerosene.
His words: “It is shocking and
regrettable that 56 percent of households in Nigerian urban cities still
use firewood to cook. In Ebonyi, only 12 percent of households have
access to kerosene while only 6.1 of the entire population of Lagos
State use Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) for cooking. About 30 million
households depend solely on wood as a source of fuel for their daily
cooking.”
Otu Eleri further stated that in a bid
to reduce drastically this alarming number of deaths being recorded
annually in the country, ICEED in partnership with the United States
Agency for International Development (USAID) came up with Energy
Efficient Woodstoves Project in Nigeria with the aim of providing
efficient energy woodstoves to Nigerian households. The aim of the
organization is to achieve better respiratory health, create new jobs
from stove production, distribution and retailing in the country,
empower women by building stove sale networks and support the country to
develop sustainable cooking energy policy frameworks.
No doubt, firewood smoke is hazardous to
the health of women, and the point must be made that most people
especially in the rural areas make use of firewood to cook because they
do not have any other alternative. Unfortunately most of them are
oblivious of the risk firewood smoke poses to their health. It is
important to note that, numerous scientific studies have linked particle
pollution exposure to a variety of problems.
These include increased respiratory
symptoms, such as irritation of the airways, coughing, or difficulty
breathing, decreased lung function, aggravated asthma, development of
chronic bronchitis, irregular heartbeat, nonfatal heart attacks and
premature death in people with heart or lung disease. Furthermore,
although wood smoke conjures up fond memories of sitting by a cozy fire,
it is important to know that the components of wood smoke and cigarette
smoke are quite similar, and that many components of both are
carcinogenic.
Wood smoke contains fine particulate
matter, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, sulfur dioxide and various
irritant gases such as nitrogen oxides that can scar the lungs. Wood
smoke also contains chemicals known or suspected to be carcinogens, such
as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and dioxin. Also, wood smoke
interferes with normal lung development in infants and children. It
also increases children’s risk of lower respiratory infections such as
bronchitis and pneumonia. Again, wood smoke exposure can depress the
immune system and damage the layer of cells in the lungs that protect
and cleanse the airways.
According to the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), toxic air pollutants are components of wood
smoke. Wood smoke can cause cough, headache, eye and throat irritation
in otherwise healthy people. For vulnerable populations, such as people
with asthma, chronic respiratory disease and those with cardiovascular
disease, wood smoke is particularly harmful— even short exposures can
prove dangerous. The particles of wood smoke are extremely small and
therefore are not filtered out by the nose or the upper respiratory
system.
Instead, these small particles end up
deep in the lungs where they remain for months, causing structural
damage and chemical changes. Wood smoke’s carcinogenic chemicals adhere
to these tiny particles, which enter deep into the lungs. Recent studies
show that fine particles that go deep into the lungs increase the risk
of heart attacks and strokes. EPA warns that for people with heart
disease, short- term exposures have been linked to heart attacks and
arrhythmia.
If you have heart disease, these tiny
particles may cause you to experience chest pain, palpitations,
shortness of breath, and fatigue. It, therefore, behooves the government
to act decisively to halt the menacing spread and adverse consequences
of firewood smoke in the country. Besides the serious health hazards, it
also contributes to deforestation and desertification. Nigeria is an
oil-producing country and a leading member of OPEC, therefore, making
kerosene available in all the nooks and crannies of the country at
affordable price should be a difficult task to accomplish.
Perhaps, if the four refineries in the
country are functioning at optimum capacity, it would be easier to do,
but the oil import dependency is a bulwark against eliminating firewood
smoke swiftly. It is evidently clear that firewood smoke is very
dangerous but much has not been said about it. It is time to drastically
reduce the use of firewood to the barest minimum for the sake of the
health of the citizenry and the protection of the environment.
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