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Primary Schools Empty as Smog Persists in Indian Capital

A street is shrouded in smog amid air pollution, during a morning in Multan, Pakistan, November 15, 2024. REUTERS/Quratulain Asim
A street is shrouded in smog amid air pollution, during a morning in Multan, Pakistan, November 15, 2024. REUTERS/Quratulain Asim
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Primary Schools Empty as Smog Persists in Indian Capital

A street is shrouded in smog amid air pollution, during a morning in Multan, Pakistan, November 15, 2024. REUTERS/Quratulain Asim
A street is shrouded in smog amid air pollution, during a morning in Multan, Pakistan, November 15, 2024. REUTERS/Quratulain Asim

Residents in India's capital New Delhi again woke under a blanket of choking smog on Friday, a day after authorities closed primary schools and imposed measures aimed at alleviating the annual crisis.

Delhi and the surrounding metropolitan area, home to more than 30 million people, consistently tops world rankings for air pollution in winter.

The smog is blamed for thousands of premature deaths each year and is an annual source of misery for residents, with various piecemeal government initiatives failing to measurably address the problem.

All primary schools were shut by government order on Thursday night with young pupils -- particularly vulnerable to smog-related ailments due to their age -- instead moving to online lessons.

"I have an eight-year-old kid and he has been suffering from a cough the past couple of days," Delhi resident Satraj, who did not give his surname, told AFP on the streets of the capital.

"The government did the right thing by shutting down schools."

Thursday's edict also banned construction work, ordered drivers of older diesel-powered vehicles to stay off the streets and directed water trucks to spray roads in a bid to clear dust particles from the air.

Delhi's air quality nonetheless deteriorated to "hazardous" levels for the fourth consecutive day this week, according to monitoring firm IQAir.

Levels of PM2.5 pollutants -- dangerous cancer-causing microparticles that enter the bloodstream through the lungs -- were recorded more than 26 times above the World Health Organization's recommended daily maximum shortly after dawn on Friday.

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Varieties

Urban Mosquito Sparks Malaria Surge in East Africa

Bed nets -- up to now the prime weapon against malaria -- may be much less effective against the urban mosquito. YASUYOSHI CHIBA / AFP/File
Bed nets -- up to now the prime weapon against malaria -- may be much less effective against the urban mosquito. YASUYOSHI CHIBA / AFP/File
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Urban Mosquito Sparks Malaria Surge in East Africa

Bed nets -- up to now the prime weapon against malaria -- may be much less effective against the urban mosquito. YASUYOSHI CHIBA / AFP/File
Bed nets -- up to now the prime weapon against malaria -- may be much less effective against the urban mosquito. YASUYOSHI CHIBA / AFP/File

The spread of a mosquito in East Africa that thrives in urban areas and is immune to insecticide is fueling a surge in malaria that could reverse decades of progress against the disease, experts say.
Africa accounted for about 95 percent of the 249 million malaria cases and 608,000 deaths worldwide in 2022, according to the most recent data from the World Health Organization (WHO), which said children under five accounted for 80 percent of deaths in the region, AFP reported.
But the emergence of an invasive species of mosquito on the continent could massively increase those numbers.
Anopheles stephensi is native to parts of South Asia and the Middle East but was spotted for the first time in the tiny Horn of Africa state of Djibouti in 2012.
Djibouti had all but eradicated malaria only to see it make a slow but steady return over the following years, hitting more than 70,000 cases in 2020.
Then stephensi arrived in neighboring Ethiopia and WHO says it is key to an "unprecedented surge", from 4.1 million malaria cases and 527 deaths last year to 7.3 million cases and 1,157 deaths between January 1 and October 20, 2024.
Unlike other species which are seasonal and prefer rural areas, stephensi thrives year-round in urban settings, breeding in man-made water storage tanks, roof gutters or even air conditioning units.
It appears to be highly resistant to insecticides, and bites earlier in the evening than other carriers. That means bed nets -- up to now the prime weapon against malaria -- may be much less effective.
"The invasion and spread of Anopheles stephensi has the potential to change the malaria landscape in Africa and reverse decades of progress we've made towards malaria control," Meera Venkatesan, malaria division chief for USAID, told AFP.
'More research is needed'
The fear is that stephensi will infest dense cities like Mombasa on Kenya's Indian Ocean coast and Sudan's capital Khartoum, with one 2020 study warning it could eventually reach 126 million city-dwellers across Africa.
Only last month, Egypt was declared malaria-free by WHO after a century-long battle against the disease -- a status that could be threatened by stephensi's arrival.
Much remains unknown, however.
Stephensi was confirmed as present in Kenya in late 2022, but has so far stayed in hotter, dryer areas without reaching the high-altitude capital, Nairobi.
"We don't yet fully understand the biology and behavior of this mosquito," Charles Mbogo, president of the Pan-African Mosquito Control Association, told AFP.
"Possibly it is climate-driven and requires high temperatures, but much more research is needed."
He called for increased funding for capturing and testing mosquitos, and for educating the public on prevention measures such as covering water receptacles.
Multiplying threats
The spread of stephensi could dovetail with other worrying trends, including increased evidence of drug resistant malaria recorded in Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Eritrea.
"The arrival of resistance is imminent," said Dorothy Achu, WHO's head of tropical and vector-borne diseases in Africa.
WHO is working with countries to diversify treatment programs to delay resistance, she said.
A new malaria variant is also evading tests used to diagnose the disease.
"The increased transmission that stephensi is driving could potentially help accelerate the spread of other threats, such as drug resistance or another mutation in the parasite that leads it to be less detectable by our most widely-used diagnostics," said Venkatesan at USAID.
Another added challenge is the lack of coordination between African governments.
Achu said WHO is working on "a more continental approach".
But Mbogo in Kenya said "more political will" was needed.