On hospital grounds this weekend Kumar ordered the installation of giant, artificial lungs fitted with filters to demonstrate the damaging effects of smog.Exposure to toxic air kills hundreds of thousands of children every year, the WHO said in an October report."These are non-smokers, but even they have black lungs," he told AFP.More long-term solutions remain elusive. He has only one lung which is now really precious. Gopinath, a thoracic surgeon at Sir Ganga Ram hospital in the Indian capital where 29-year-old Kumar was treated."Everything else is just eyewash," he said."Despite reappearing every winter, official efforts to combat Delhis smog have been ineffectual.Children, the elderly and those with respiratory ailments like asthma suffer the most from Delhis hazardous smog, which does not lift until around late February."A child who is born in Delhi is taking in gulps of bad air which is equivalent to smoking 20 to 25 cigarettes on the first day of his life," said Arvind Kumar, a prominent Delhi lung surgeon.Emergency measures such as banning construction, cutting down traffic and prohibiting the use of diesel generators have had little effect."His resistance is weak.

It has devastating effects on children in Delhi, say doctors who see it first hand.Every November, hospital wards start filling with gasping patients as a tell-tale greyish haze shrouds the city of 20 million."Even teenagers have black spots on their lungs.One of the worst times is around the Hindu festival of Diwali as smoke from millions of crackers set off by festive revellers mingles with car exhaust, factory emissions, construction dust and smoke from crop fires.Surgeon Kumar said pollution needed to be tackled at its source. State governments have refused to cooperate China Filter Regulator Lubricator Manufacturers on root causes of the crisis, such as farmers using fire to clear their land on the outskirts of Delhi.

As cooler air traps pollutants close to the ground, Delhis levels of PM2.Smog kills more than one million Indians every year and Delhi has the worst air of any major city on the planet, the World Health Organization says.Pollution readings can reach so high they do not register on scientific instruments."Delhi air is like a death sentence for him," said Srinivas K.Kumar is due to be discharged from hospital around the time of the festival on Wednesday. This is frightening.New Delhi: Yogesh Kumar wheezes after life-saving surgery to remove a diseased lung, but his surgeons wonder how long he can last outside hospital breathing some of the worlds dirtiest air.For years the surgeon has tirelessly campaigned to raise awareness about the dangers of air pollution, which the WHO last month likened to the tobacco epidemic.Children breathe more rapidly than adults, taking twice as much polluted air into their tiny bodies. Imagine having to cope up with such bad air with only one lung?"Black lungs -But he is far from alone.Many of the patients he sees already bear physical scars from breathing a lifetime of Delhi air."Inside (the hospital) the air quality is maintained, but once he steps out the bad air will start affecting him," Gopinath told AFP.5 -- particles so tiny they can enter the lungs and bloodstream -- often soar to beyond 30 times the safe limit.Gopinath fears for his patient, who survived tuberculosis but is now at the mercy of another invisible killer.