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A recently launched report has revealed the top 10 of the most polluted countries in Africa with Burkina Faso topping the chat.
A recent World Air Quality Report by IQAir showed that Egypt was second on the list followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda respectively.
Zimbabwe was fifth followed by Ghana then Libya while Gambia found itself on the eighth position.
Senegal ranked ninth while Uganda was number 10.
Although Africa saw an improvement in the number of countries included in this year’s report compared with previous years, the continent largely remained the most underrepresented.
The African nations of Chad and Sudan were notably absent in 2023 due to a lack of publicly available monitoring data.
According to IQAir, only 24 of 54 African countries had sufficient data available from their monitoring stations.
The report revealed a concerning disparity, leading to a shortage of air quality data in those regions.
It showed a scarcity of monitoring stations in countries across Africa, South America, and the Middle East, leading to a shortage of air quality data in those regions.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), air pollution was responsible for an estimated seven million premature deaths worldwide every year, and causes an estimated one in every nine deaths worldwide.
The report provided a global review of air quality data for the year 2023.
It compiled PM2.5 air quality data from 7,812 cities across 134 countries, regions, and territories.
The report gathered information from over 30,000 air quality monitoring stations.
According to the report, exposure to PM2.5 (micrograms per cubic meter) air pollution led to and exacerbated numerous health conditions, including but not limited to asthma, cancer, stroke and lung disease.
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