But the humble bee has been on the decline for decades.
Pesticides and climate change have taken much of the blame for that downward trend. Now a new report to mark World Bee Day has highlighted emerging problems threatening their existence. The report states that almost 90 percent of flowering plants and three quarters of the world’s staple crops rely on pollinators.
“If the decline in pollinators continues, we are going to see significant food insecurity, because the amount, the quality and the quantity of yield will reduce. But also, pollination plays a huge role in the nutritious value. So micronutrients in the food are dependent on having good pollination. So not only will we have a reduction in the food quantity that we eat , the quality will also be seriously affected,” says the report’s co-author, Deepa Senapathi, who is Head of Department of Sustainable Land Management at the University of Reading.
A multitude of threats
Experts identified the top 12 new threats facing bees. Some relate to pollution – artificial light at night has reduced flower visits by nocturnal pollinators by 62 percent.
Antibiotic pollution in hives could be affecting bee behaviour, such as reducing how often they forage for flowers. Pesticides, air pollution and microplastics also made the list.
“We talk about how pollution is a big issue, right? But what we may not really focus on is the actual specifics of what type of pollution. So, for example, diesel and exhaust fumes, for instance, when they pollute the air, they can also disrupt pollinator plant interactions. So the bees may not be able to kind of identify their best foraging resources. If there’s heavy metal pollution in the water or the soil, that may impact behaviour of bees. It may even impact their reproductive success survival,” says Senapathi.
Other problems facing bees are more frequent and fierce wildfires destroying habitats which can’t recover quickly enough afterwards.
It’s not too late
But the report doesn’t think it’s too late to save bees. It says things like growing crops with more pollen and nectar, laws that limit antibiotics that harm pollinators, transitioning to electric vehicles to cut down on fumes and crating more flower-rich habitats will go some distance in protecting the creatures.
“I think we need stronger policies and regulations . We also can, I think, take advantage of lots of new and emerging technology that can help us monitor pollinator populations. So unless we know what’s there and whether it’s doing better or worse or at a status quo, unless we have those monitoring initiatives in place, we won’t be able to know if something is declining,” suggest Senapathi.
The report titled ‘Emerging Threats and Opportunities for Conservation of Global Pollinators’ was commissioned by Bee:wild, a global campaign to save pollinators.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has sounded the alarm on the long-term health repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic in its newly released World Health Statistics Report 2025. The report reveals a staggering decline in global life expectancy, which dropped by 1.8 years between 2019 and 2021 – the sharpest fall in recent history, effectively reversing a decade of health gains.
The pandemic’s toll extended beyond direct mortality. Increased levels of anxiety and depression during the crisis shaved six weeks off the global healthy life expectancy, offsetting progress previously made in combating noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).
“The 2025 World Health Statistics report shows that the world is failing in its annual health checkup,” said Samira Asma, WHO Director of Data Analytics and Delivery for Impact. “But countries have shown that rapid progress is possible. What we really need to do is to recommit to the world with timely, reliable data where programmes are continuously improving and premature deaths become rare.”
Mixed Progress Towards WHO’s Global Health Goals
The report highlights mixed results in achieving WHO’s Triple Billion targets. While an estimated 1.4 billion more people were living healthier lives by the end of 2024 – surpassing the goal of one billion – progress in other key areas lagged behind.
Only 431 million additional people gained access to essential health services without financial hardship, far from the target. Additionally, just 637 million more people were better protected from health emergencies, underscoring significant shortfalls in resilience and preparedness.
Maternal and child health gains have also stalled. While maternal deaths dropped by over 40% and under-5 child mortality was halved between 2000 and 2023, recent years have seen this progress plateau. The WHO warns that without urgent action, the world could miss the chance to prevent an additional 700,000 maternal deaths and 8 million child deaths between 2024 and 2030.
NCDs on the Rise, Premature Deaths Escalate
Noncommunicable diseases, including heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and stroke, now account for more than half of deaths in people under 70.
“Mortality rates have improved in that age group, but the number of deaths due to NCDs has increased,” noted Haidong Wang, Acting Director of WHO’s Department of Data and Analytics. “Tobacco use remains a major factor, and although alcohol consumption has decreased in some regions, progress has stalled in others. Poor management of hypertension and diabetes, along with persistent air pollution, continues to endanger global health.”
The world is currently off track to meet the Sustainable Development Goal of reducing premature NCD mortality by one third by 2030.
Key Challenges Undermining Health Progress
The WHO points to several compounding factors undermining global health efforts:
A projected shortfall of 11.1 million health workers by 2030, with the African and Eastern Mediterranean regions bearing nearly 70% of the gap.
Resurgence of malaria since 2015 and ongoing challenges with antimicrobial resistance.
Incomplete recovery in childhood vaccination rates, with coverage yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.
A persistent burden from air pollution, malnutrition, and unsafe living conditions.
Furthermore, recent disruptions in international aid threaten to destabilize progress, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. The WHO is calling for sustained and predictable financing from both domestic and global sources to safeguard hard-won health gains and address emerging threats.
Despite the grim findings, the report also offers signs of hope: tobacco use continues to decline globally, and alcohol consumption fell from 5.7 to 5.0 litres per capita between 2010 and 2022. Improvements in air quality, access to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene have contributed to healthier living conditions for millions.
The WHO urges urgent and coordinated global action to correct course and reignite progress toward 2030 health targets.
The Supreme Court today hears a challenge to the EPA’s authority to regulate air quality. Three GOP-led states want the court to freeze a plan that limits air pollution that crosses state borders. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has vowed to stay in the presidential race through Super Tuesday. But Saturday’s primary in her home state is shaping up to be another decisive victory for former President Donald Trump. What’s her case for staying in the race? And Alabama’s Supreme Court rules that fertilized eggs have the same rights as children.
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Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Krishnadev Calamur, Padma Rama, Susanna Capelouto and HJ Mai. It was produced by Claire Murashima, Ben Abrams and Milton Guevara. We get engineering support from Robert Rodriguez, and our technical director is Neisha Heinis.
Let’s clean the air we breathe: air pollution exacerbates asthma
(CNS): My first personal brush with the severity of asthma, was several years ago, when one of my students suddenly started gasping for breath in the middle of her Physics Practical final examination of Class 12. We were clueless about the cause of her sudden affliction.
Other than making her sit in the open air and force her to drink water, we did not know what to do. A frantic phone call to her parents, elicited that it was an attack of asthma as she had forgotten her inhaler at home.
Thankfully she normalized after a while. But the memory of those agonizing 15 minutes still remains etched in my mind.
What if something untoward had happened because of her and her parents’ carelessness, and our ignorance?
Even though awareness about asthma has increased manifold since then, it still remains a major global health problem. A chronic, non-communicable respiratory condition, asthma affects over 300 million people (10% of them being in India) and kills nearly 250,000 people every year. There is no cure for it, but with proper treatment and care most people can lead normal lives. However, poor control of asthma, and poor access to quality asthma treatment, can lead to serious consequences.
Management of asthma is very much about controlling the condition with effective treatment. Strangely, for a condition that is so common, and can cause serious illness or death if not treated, there is no gold standard definitive diagnostic test for it. A clinical diagnosis based on symptoms is all that we have. The Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA), defines asthma by the ‘history of respiratory symptoms such as wheeze, shortness of breath, chest tightness and cough that vary over time and in intensity, together with variable expiratory airflow limitation.’
This, coupled with the fact that asthma symptoms mimic other respiratory diseases, could often lead to misdiagnosis. Whilst in the past, asthma was often under diagnosed, the pendulum now seems to have swung the other way, at least in some countries. Referring to a paper published by two London doctors in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, BBC says that ‘asthma is now being over-diagnosed and trivialised, and that too many children are being incorrectly diagnosed with asthma, with inhalers being dispensed for no good reason’.
The paper asks doctors to consider the use of more objective checks-testing nitrogen oxide levels and blood tests -if they are unsure about a diagnosis. And if a child is not getting better despite asthma medication, then, instead of increasing doses automatically, the possibility of an incorrect diagnosis should be considered.
In another study done in Canada, researchers found that one third of the adults diagnosed with asthma in the past 5 years showed no signs of the condition on retesting—either because it had got better or they were wrongly diagnosed in the first place. They were able to safely stop taking asthma medicines under medical supervision.
While the problem of unnecessary and over treatment of asthma seems to be present in the developed countries, many people around the world still lack access to basic effective treatment. In a webinar recently organised by CNS (Citizen News Service), Dr Kevin Mortimer, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Liverpool School of Medicine, stressed that poor asthma control and poor access to quality asthma treatment, can lead to serious consequences and impairments.
He informed that the inhaler treatment comprises (i) reliever treatment— as and when required, and (ii) regular preventive treatment that can stop the symptoms from arising in the first place. Inhaled corticosteroids are the most important asthma drugs and are on the WHO essential medicines list. Yet they remain out of reach for many of the world’s poor who have asthma. Most rural areas are underserved by health services. To achieve effective asthma care for all, especially the rural poor, health systems need to be strengthened, and a key part of that strengthening is having access to funded basic quality asthma treatment, believes Dr Mortimer.
Prof. Surya Kant, Head of Respiratory Medicine Department, King George’s Medical University, recommends a 6-D approach for management of asthma: (i) Doctor (who knows how to deal with asthma (ii) Diagnosis (correct diagnosis), (iii) Drug/Dosage (prescribe correct drug in right doses), (iv) Device (select the correct device for drug delivery), (v) Deliberation (interaction with patient for proper care), (vi) a(D)herence (to inhalation treatment therapy as advised by the doctor).
While there is effective treatment available to keep asthma under control in the majority of cases, Dr Mortimer acknowledges that “Our understanding of the disease (why do some people get it and others not, what factors contribute to its development, etc) still remains poor. There are many sub types of asthma, and it is not a single entity, as we normally believe.
So there are about 10% patients whose asthma does not respond fully even to the best treatments available. We do not know why, but perhaps some genetic factors play a part in these cases.”
Indoor and outdoor air pollution, occupational exposure to polluted air, and tobacco smoke are all associated with the development and exacerbation of asthma. Each individual can contribute to controlling asthma in their own way by changing current practises.
The most obvious one is to stop smoking. Active, as well as passive, tobacco smoking is closely associated with development of asthma, progression of asthma and reduced impact of inhaled corticosteroids. Anyone smoking anywhere around the world is contributing to this problem. Smoking is a completely avoidable risk factor as far as asthma- and other respiratory diseases too-are concerned.
Next is household air pollution that arises, mainly through use of bio mass fuel — burning of crop refuse, charcoal, kerosene, wood, etc. in open fires.
Then again, people who drive diesel cars in the city, need to rethink about their choice of transport, and their choice of fuel, as motor vehicle smoke is another source of outdoor air pollution. What we need are strategies at the global level, to clean up the air we breathe, says Dr Mortimer.
Physical exercise must be encouraged in people with asthma, even though some of them might be sensitive to exercise and get an exercise induced bronchial spasm. Dr Mortimer advises two precautions that can minimise any adverse effects of exercise on ones asthma—(i) take basic preventive treatment regularly and correctly to control airway inflammation, and (ii) pre-medicate to avoid flaring up asthma symptoms during exercise.
This would involve taking the reliever inhaler just before the exercise and also having it ready at hand, if need arises during exercise.
Chakatip Kiatduriyakul, a finance expert from Thailand is one of the many people who have been managing their asthma very well. She shares, “I had asthma from age 6 till age 20. After that I had it only intermittently. But in 2007, when there was a lot of smoke in Chiang Mai (due to crop burning), my asthma came back and this time it lasted longer than usual.
The conditions that I have to watch out are dust, smoke, heat, over-exercise and stress. As Thailand has universal health coverage (UHC), asthma medication is free for me. When the symptoms start, it is best to take medication right away otherwise it can worsen quickly. Other than doing regular physical exercise, I use meditation and music to help reduce the intensity of asthma attacks.
Sometimes drinking strong coffee helps too, in case of mild symptoms. It is also important to live in a clean environment. Too much stuff collects dust, which is a known trigger for asthma. So I either throw away or donate unused stuff regularly.
Having lots of free space is good for the mind, as controlling stress is another key part of keeping asthma away.”
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