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Home / Articles and Press Releases / Press Release / Air Pollution Overtakes AIDS Related Deaths

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Press Release

Air Pollution Overtakes AIDS Related Deaths

By South Coast Science

| Read Bio

Published: May 19th, 2021

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Research findings show that annual PM2.5 concentrations in some African cities are as much as 5 times over the WHO limit for health-harmful concentration. Findings like these place air pollution as the leading cause of premature death in Africa, overtaking AIDs related deaths.

Air Pollution Overtakes AIDS Related Deaths -

The research is highlighted by the Columbia Earth Institute The studies were carried out in 2018/19 in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo. These mega-cities are home to 14.3M and 2.4M people respectively and rapid population growth means these numbers are climbing. That adds up to a vast (and increasing) number of people exposed to harmful concentrations of air pollutants.

“major forms of pollution exist due to the absence of infrastructure such as monitoring systems”

– United Nations Environment Programme (2017) Towards a Pollution-Free Planet. United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi, Kenya.

Far from global equality in ambient air monitoring

According to the UN, there are no national ambient air quality standards in either of the countries in the study. While this is alarming, it is perhaps not surprising. Many regions outside Europe and the US don’t have comprehensive air quality monitoring programmes.

This study is the first long-term, publicly available and systematic air quality data study carried out in sub-saharan Africa and is highlighted by the Columbia Earth Institute.

It’s crucial research: not only quantifying the scale of air pollution but also developing a correction factor for the low-cost sensors that were used in the region. Reference instruments in Kampala and Uganda were used for this calibration work.

Real-world air quality monitoring

The findings highlight the need for air quality monitoring in densely populated urban areas. Without it we cannot quantify the threat to life and costs of air pollution and equally, cannot raise awareness of the need to implement clean air solutions.

“AQM projects on the African continent are often carried out in areas that are either remote or are lacking in reliable services such as electricity or security. In addition, projects are often carried out by people that are not specialists in instrumentation or air quality but carry out a cross-functional role within their organisations.

This creates many design requirements for the instrumentation, particularly that once calibrated to local conditions, the instruments can operate stably for long periods without operator intervention”. Mark Baird – Argos Scientific, South Africa

Real-world air quality monitoring

With such large topics on the table for discussion, the data we use must be credible. Low-cost sensors have long faced scepticism about the quality of data they produce. A flood of low-cost, plug-and-play air quality monitors arriving on the market and a lack of regulation for air quality monitoring technology doesn’t help. To gain accurate data output, it’s necessary to understand the local environmental conditions, e.g. temperature, relative humidity, particle size distribution and particle loading. Scientific rigour is required to do the job properly.

South Coast Science has devoted considerable resources to developing the correction model for their Praxis device, which has recently received MCERTS certification. They have worked closely with UNEP to gather data for this purpose, also to build devices that are robust enough to operate in hostile African climates. Air quality monitoring solutions are all about accurate and accessible data: they aren’t worth much if they cannot provide credible data in the real world, wherever they might be located.

If you’d like to find out more about South Coast Science’s work with the UNEP or our products or follow us on LinkedIn.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

South Coast Science

South Coast Science was founded in 2016 as a response to a market call for a standard digital front-end for Alphasense electrochemical sensors. A gap in the market was identified for an electronic interface between electrochemical sensors and industry-standard microcontrollers, including Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone. The result was a project that more than matched its brief.

The company was founded by three engineers with experience in environmental science, ultra-low noise analogue electronics, precision electronics manufacture, device firmware, and cloud data infrastructure. The fourth part of our team is Alphasense, South Coast Science’s founding investor and technical partner. Together, we have developed unique approaches to the problems of part-per-billion gas concentration monitoring at a realistic cost.

In addition to activity in electrochemical sensing, our products support particulate monitoring, photoionisation detector (PID), and non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) sensors. South Coast Science’s customers range from electronic engineers working in the development of scientific equipment, through to those in need of packaged solutions in environmental science, environmental health, workplace health, and air conditioning equipment monitoring and management.

South Coast Science offers key differentiators in the field of environmental monitoring:

• A core design, based on experience in low-noise design and environmental science practice, that rejects exactly the upper frequency noise that typically disrupts attempts to read gas electrochems.

• An open-source software stack that provides out-of- the-box internet connectivity to standard, open data infrastructures, using the emerging environmental metadata standards.

• For each product, a set of deliverables giving the most flexibility to the customer, from circuit boards to out-of-the-box solutions.

South Coast Science continues to develop gas electrochemical systems, related hardware and open software solutions, optimised for specific monitoring settings.

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