The decision was eagerly awaited. British justice recognized, Wednesday, December 16, for the first time, the role of air pollution in the death of Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah on February 15, 2013, in London at the age of 9, from a serious asthma attack, after almost three years of repeated attacks and about thirty hospitalizations linked to this disease. “My conclusion is that air pollution made a material contribution to Ella’s death” London Borough of Southwark deputy medical examiner Philip Barlow said after two weeks of hearings.
Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah lived in Lewisham, less than thirty yards from the South Circular, a busy route in South London.
“Striking link”
In 2014, justice determined that she died of acute respiratory failure caused by severe asthma, and not because of pollution. But those findings were overturned in 2019, and a new round of hearings was ordered due to new scientific evidence, including the report by UK air pollution expert Stephen Holgate in 2018.
The latter had noted a “Striking link” between Ella’s emergency hospitalizations and the recorded peaks of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and suspended particles, the most harmful pollutants, near her home. “Ella lived on a razor’s edge. This means that a very small change can have dramatic consequences ”, had explained during a hearing, on December 8, this professor in immunopharmacology at the University of Southampton.
Between 28,000 and 36,000 deaths occurring in the UK each year are estimated to be linked to air pollution.
