KARACHI – Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), a global leader in health technology is stepping up its innovation efforts in air purification towards helping more people make the change to living healthier lives indoors.
With a team of more than 100 scientists, doctors and engineers working in air purification, Philips has a long-standing heritage in health technology and has become a global leader in air purification. As part of this journey, Philips has launched its latest home care innovation in Pakistan – the new Philips Air Purifier 2000i Series – to help improve clean air delivery that keeps pollutants, bacteria and viruses at bay.
Across the region, including in Pakistan, urban areas are frequently plagued by smog. Similar to last year, Lahore and Islamabad continue to be shrouded by heavy smog in 2020, which has taken a toll on people’s personal health. With more people staying indoors to protect themselves from the polluted outdoor air, it is important to ensure that consumers take the steps to ensure that our indoor air is clean and healthy.
“In Pakistan, people are increasingly prioritizing their health and those of their loved ones. At Philips, we believe that empowering people to take control of their own health is important, and these can be addressed with innovative technologies,” said Nicholas Lee, Personal Health Leader, Philips ASEAN Pacific. “With the Philips Air Purifiers, we want to provide our customers with the latest intelligent, personalized solutions that can help them breathe easier by creating healthy indoor spaces.”
Indoor air is 2-5 times more polluted than outdoor air and is often compromised by PM2.5 ultrafine particles, allergens, bacteria, harmful gases as well as air humidity. Numerous forms of indoor air pollution lurk in modern indoor spaces, giving rise to chronic health conditions such as asthma or allergic rhinitis that affects more than 20% of the world’s population today.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there has been evidence that “some COVID-19 infections can be spread by exposure to viruses in small droplets and particles that can linger in the air for minutes to hours”, referring to airborne transmission.
Philips air purifiers remove up to 99.9% of viruses and aerosols from the air. The size of SARS-CoV-2 virus is estimated to be between 50 –140 nanometers (nm). As Philips NanoProtect HEPA filters can remove 99.97% of particles as small as 0.003?m (equals to 3 nm), smaller than the smallest known virus, from the air which passes through the filter, a similar performance is expected for SARS-CoV-2 aerosols.
The WHO Global Health Observatory estimates that the country’s annual burden of disease due to indoor pollution accounts for 40 million cases of acute respiratory infections and 28,000 deaths per year. It is also estimated that about 30 deaths per 100,000 are attributable to indoor air pollution, while about 25 deaths per 100,000 are attributable to outdoor air pollution8.
