Yemisi Olusina
If you enter in an environment and suddenly started feeling dizzy, headache, confusion or even the urge to vomit, cover your nose immediately and run out of that place.
Those are signs of high concentration of carbon monoxide, a major polluter of the atmosphere that is responsible for most deaths and respiratory diseases including lung cancer, chocking and fainting.
An air quality expert Dr. Roseline Alani, gave the advice in a lecture in Lagos recently.
She said in an event of emergencies as a result of inhaling bad air, as air quality deteriorates across the globe, Nigeria inclusive, people should call toll free numbers 911, 199, 767 or 122, for immediate assistance from emergency response agencies in the country.
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According to her carbon monoxide which is a colourless and odourless gas, is found mostly in fumes from generating sets as well as smoke from vehicles and burning of organic materials including wastes.
Regretting that Nigeria has been so badly rated as the tenth most Polluted country globally, and accounting for over sixty percent of deaths in West Africa, due to air pollution, Dr. Alani, called on Federal Government to urgently address power problem in the country to at least reduce pollution due to generators use.
Dr. Alani who is the Head , Air Quality Monitoring Research Group, University of Lagos, underlined impacts of air pollution in Nigeria to include, darkening of the sky, deformation of babies in the womb, killing of fishes, reduction in soil fertility and damage to reproductive organs leading to infertility.
She, however, observed that very little has been done on air quality monitoring and research in Nigeria.
