An eight-year-old girl from China's Jiangsu province was diagnosed with lung cancer, The New York Daily News reported. Pollution caused it, according to a state media report.
The child, whose name remains anonymous, has lived near a busy road her entire life. The constant exposure to dust and particles led to lung disease, her doctors from the Jiangsu Cancer Hospital said.
She's the youngest Chinese citizen ever to develop a disease which typically affects people 70 and older, according to the American Cancer Society.
The young girl's diagnosis comes less than a month after the World Health Organization (WHO) officially classified air pollution as a grade 1 carcinogen and contextualized its proclamation by calling it "the most important environmental carcinogen," according to The Daily News.
Around the same time, several schools and an airport closed in the city of Harbin (population of 11 million) because of unsafe levels of air pollution. Levels of PM 2.5, the most damaging type of air particle, reached levels 40 times greater than WHO deems safe, according to Business Insider.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of death in China, The Daily News reported. Related deaths have increased by 465 percent since 1970 according to a report from 2008. Deaths from other types of cancers associated with air pollution, such as bladder cancer, have also significantly increased.
The environment is one of the chief concerns facing China today. The government announced in September plans to reduce smog by 25 percent and coal consumption by 65 percent by 2017, according to The Daily News.
