Chandigarh’s first Pollen Calendar can help identify potential allergy triggers and guard sensitive people from exposure

What is the News?

Chandigarh has got its first pollen calendar. This can identify potential allergy triggers and provide a clear understanding for clinicians as well as allergy sufferers about their causes to help limit their exposure during high pollen loads.

What is Pollen?

Pollen is a fine yellowish powder released by plants. They are essential for the sexual reproduction of flowering plants and plants that produce cones. Each pollen grain contains male gametes necessary for fertilisation. 

Pollen and Allergies

Pollen produced by plants are considered major outdoor airborne allergens responsible for allergic rhinitis, asthma, and atopic dermatitis in humans.

In India, about 20-30% of the population suffers from allergic rhinitis/hay fever and approximately 15% develop asthma.

What are Pollen Calendars?

Pollen calendars represent the time dynamics of airborne pollen taxa in graphical form in a particular geographical area. 

They yield readily accessible visual details about various airborne pollen taxa present throughout the year, with their seasonality in a single picture. They are also location-specific, with concentrations closely related to locally distributed flora.

What is the significance of Pollen Calendars?

Pollen Calendars will help prepare early advisories and disseminate them through media channels to the citizens so that they can use protective gear during the period when the concentration of allergic pollen will be high. 

It is also a preventive tool for sensitive people to diminish exposure when the levels of aero-pollen are high during specific periods.

Source: This post is based on the article “Chandigarh’s first Pollen Calendar ” published in PIB on 6th September 2021.