[imagesource: Hollie Adams/Getty]

It’s likely that nine-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah is not the first person to die from exposure to air pollution, but she is thought to be the first in the world to have it listed as one of the causes of her death by a coroner.

Ella suffered from severe asthma that caused episodes of cardiac and respiratory arrest, evident in frequent emergency hospital admissions over the years.

She passed away in a hospital in February 2013 after suffering a cardiac arrest from which she could not be resuscitated.

Per CNN, seven years after her death, on Wednesday, a “landmark coroner’s ruling” listed “acute respiratory failure, severe asthma, and air pollution exposure”.

Assistant coroner Philip Barlow stated that “air pollution was a significant contributory factor to both the induction and exacerbation of her asthma”.

“During the course of her illness between 2010 and 2013 she was exposed to levels of nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter in excess of World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines.”

Image: PA Images

“The principal source of her exposure was traffic emissions,” he said, according to PA.

Ella and her mother lived in Lewisham, southeast London, near one of the UK capital’s busiest roads, the South Circular.

Barlow also pointed out that there was a failure over the course of Ella’s illness to reduce the level of nitrogen dioxide in accordance with the limits set by EU and domestic law.

“We’ve got the justice for her which she so deserved,” Ella’s mother, Rosamund Kissi-Debrah (below), said after the ruling.

Image: PA Images

But she added: “Also it’s about other children still as we walk around our city of high levels of air pollution.”

“Her legacy would be to bring in a new Clean Air Act and for governments – I’m not just talking about the UK government – governments around the world to take this matter seriously,” said Kissi-Debrah, reported PA.

Kissi-Debrah says that rather than playing a “blame game”, she wants to see a public awareness campaign about the damage that air pollution can do.

“Our hearts go out to Ella’s family who have fought tirelessly for today’s landmark outcome,” said Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation.

“Ella’s legacy has firmly put the spotlight on the invisible dangers of breathing dirty air,” particularly for those with asthma or lung diseases, she said, criticizing “inadequate air quality laws and policies.”

A previous inquest ruling in 2014, concluding that Ella died of acute respiratory failure, was thrown out by the High Court following new evidence about the dangerous levels of air pollution close to her home.

[source:cnn]