Choking Haze Sends Hundreds of Tehran Residents to Hospitals

A suffocating haze, consisting of dust and smoke particles, blanketed Tehran and forced 1,051 citizens to rush to medical centers on Saturday, Emergency Services Organization announced.
According to Mojtaba Khaledi, an official with the organization, toxic air has enveloped almost all Iranian metropolises, causing health problems in hundreds of citizens on Saturday.
"Tehran has the poorest air quality in the country, which causes extensive health effects," he said, adding that Isfahan and Alborz provinces are the most polluted cities after the capital, ISNA reported.
As the fourth leading cause of premature deaths worldwide, toxic air leads to heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and respiratory infections.
A medical expert at Isfahan University of Medical Science warned that poor air quality triples the severity of cardiovascular diseases and increases the risk of chronic respiratory inflammations by 10 times.