Nepal: severe air pollution affecting people’s health and life expectancy

For over a week, the air quality of the Nepali capital Kathmandu has been switching from Very Unhealthy to Hazardous and vice versa. At times, the thick layer of smog has also blocked the sun’s rays, further deteriorating the air quality. This situation has provoked a surge of respiratory difficulty cases at major hospitals in the area. Kaliprasad Osiyara, Information Officer at the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH), said his facility struggles to manage the flow of patients, especially children, with viral fever, cough, cold, allergies, and other respiratory issues. The cases of patients rushed into the emergency room with respiratory alienation have also increased to 25 daily. The hospital can attend 250 patients, now raised to 300, and has been forced sometimes to turn back people or refer them to other structures, admitting only the most severe cases. Other hospitals have also reported a spike in cases of respiratory ailment, increasing their usual workload. The Kanti Children’s Hospital, for example, has recorded a rise in the number of patients with respiratory illnesses, skin diseases, and other conditions linked to air pollution.
Kathmandu has an area of 413.69 square kilometres and has become a hotspot of air pollution in recent years. Smoke from cars, homes, and industries has contributed to the situation, as well as haphazard waste burning. Several private and public vehicles that have failed emission tests are also spreading pollutants across the city, further deteriorating air quality levels. In a random test conducted by the Environment Department of Kathmandu Metropolis in January 2025, 193 out of 261 buses, micro-buses, and Tata pick-up trucks operating in the capital failed the emission test, but they continued to roam the streets. According to senior doctors like Niraj Bam (TUTH), the increase in air pollution has resulted in more cases of lung cancer, which has been one of the major death causes in the country in recent years. It might also fuel health conditions like diabetes, stroke, infertility, and heart attack.
In a press release last week, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), a regional intergovernmental learning and knowledge-sharing centre, attributed the critical air quality condition in Kathmandu to pre-monsoon forest fires in Nepal’s western districts, which are affected by a severe drought. The emissions from these fires include carbon monoxide, fine particulate matter in the form of PM2.5, and black carbon. When breathed in, all of them can enter the bloodstream and provoke severe respiratory issues, sometimes even death. According to the Ministry of Health, air pollution causes 42,000 deaths in Nepal annually and has decreased the life expectancy of the population by 4.1%. Although the issue has been acknowledged as a major public health concern, the country does not have the economic resources to face it, and the lack of impact assessment data also makes it difficult to implement measures to tackle such an environmental challenge.