$1b health bill to treat the victims of a choking killer

Hong Kong is paying more than $1 billion a year to treat illnesses caused by air pollution, and the number of lung disease patients being attacked by the choking killer is growing, doctors say.

A study has estimated that every 10 micrograms per cubic metre of nitrogen dioxide, a key pollutant, in the air costs about $200 million a year in direct health-care costs, including hospital admissions and doctors' consultations.

A study by the University of Hong Kong, commissioned by the Environmental Protection Department, estimated in 2000 the bill totalled $1.3 billion. In that year, the mean concentration of nitrogen dioxide was 58 micrograms per cubic metre.

The research team used data collected between 1995 and 2000, including figures for hospital admissions, and visits to accident and emergency wards, general outpatients' clinics and private doctors for treatment of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.

'These health-cost estimates remind us that we are paying a price for economic development,' said the study's author, Wong Chit-ming, associate professor of community medicine at the university.

'The figures help the government or other organisations to assess the health impact before they go ahead with planning and infrastructure projects such as building new transport systems,' he said.

Other studies conducted in the past decade by Wong Tze-wai, a professor from the Chinese University's department of community and family medicine, illustrate the burden pollution places on the health-care system.