Section of Neurology, Department of Medicine, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan.
Department of Neurology, Rashid Hospital, Dubai, UAE.
J Stroke Cerebrovasc Dis. 2021 Aug;30(8):105860. doi: 10.1016/j.jstrokecerebrovasdis.2021.105860. Epub 2021 May 9.
Amongst all the global catastrophe due to Coronavirus disease 2019, a significant bright spot is a reduction in air pollution as countries undergo lockdowns to limit the spread of infection. Another reduction that has been reported is in the number of strokes presenting to hospitals, despite the virus implicated in causing a hypercoagulable state. Acute exposure to air pollution has been linked to increase in stroke incidence and the improvement in air quality may be responsible for the decrease in stroke presentations.
To explore this hypothesis, we compared the air quality index (AQI) of Karachi, the largest cosmopolitan city of Pakistan, during the lockdown period in 2020 to the same period in the previous year.
We found a significant drop in AQI depicting an improvement in air quality. Simultaneously, we identified a drop in number of stroke admissions to less than half from 2019 to 2020 at one of the largest tertiary care hospitals of the city, during this period of interest.
We hypothesize that one important reason for this drop in stroke admissions, may be an actual reduction in stroke incidence brought about by an improvement in air quality.
在 2019 年冠状病毒病造成的所有全球灾难中，一个显著的亮点是，随着各国为限制感染传播而实施封锁，空气污染有所减少。尽管病毒被认为会导致高凝状态，但据报道，到医院就诊的中风病例也有所减少。急性暴露于空气污染与中风发病率增加有关，空气质量的改善可能是中风发作减少的原因。
为了探索这一假设，我们比较了 2020 年封锁期间巴基斯坦最大的国际化城市卡拉奇的空气质量指数（AQI）与前一年同期的 AQI。
我们发现，空气质量指数（AQI）显著下降，表明空气质量有所改善。同时，我们发现，在这一期间，该市最大的三级护理医院之一的中风入院人数从 2019 年到 2020 年下降了一半以下。
我们假设，中风入院人数下降的一个重要原因可能是空气质量改善导致中风发病率实际下降。
