Over 28,000 Ghanaians die yearly from air pollution

The Director of Public Health at the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), Florence Kuukyi, has raised serious concerns about the worsening sanitation conditions in Accra and their growing threat to public health.

She warned that the increasing levels of filth across the capital are not only driving outbreaks of cholera and other sanitation-related diseases but are also contributing significantly to deteriorating air quality.

Citing recent data, Ms. Kuukyi revealed that more than 28,000 people die annually in Ghana as a result of air pollution, equivalent to one death every 19 minutes.

Describing the situation as “disheartening,” she called for urgent and coordinated action from all stakeholders to address the crisis before it escalates further.

“This is leading to a number of diseases, not just the diarrhea and the typhoid you mentioned. It also has an impact on the air you breathe. Studies have it that in Ghana, over 28,000 people die prematurely due to air pollution. This means that in every 19 minutes, somebody dies due to air pollution,” she said.

The AMA Public Health Director stressed that sanitation management must be seen as a shared responsibility among government, private waste collectors, and residents.

“Sanitation in the country is a collective and collaborative effort. Everyone has a role to play when it comes to sanitation issues. In Ghana, we are practicing the ‘pollutant pay’ system — the persons who generate the waste must pay for it to be disposed of. That is where the issues come in. People generate waste and do not want to take on that responsibility, and they want to push everything on the government,” she explained.

Ms. Kuukyi called on residents to take personal responsibility for managing the waste they generate, urging them to cooperate with the city’s sanitation and environmental health authorities to make Accra cleaner and safer.