News-Medical Net: Concern about the environment grows in East Asia as impacts of pollution and urbanization increase

From News-Medical.Net
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Water-borne diseases now cause half a million infant deaths annually in the region, while air pollution causes thousands of premature deaths 50,000 people die prematurely each year in China due to pollution just from coal burning, according to the World Bank‘s new Environment Strategy for the East Asia and Pacific region.

These trends are a growing concern as more people move to the region’s already crowded cities. More than 39 percent of the region’s 1.8 billion people now live in cities, according to the World Bank’s annual compendium of environmental data, the Little Green Data Book 2005. And by 2015 urban areas will be home to more than 50 percent of the region’s population, estimates the Environment Strategy.