Mongolian air pollution causing health crisis - UNICEF

ULAANBAATAR (Reuters) - Smog in the Mongolia's capital, Ulaanbaatar, is causing a public health crisis, especially among children, with treatment costs likely to put the cash-strapped country under increasing strain, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said.

The government needed to take urgent action to limit smog-induced health problems, UNICEF and Mongolia's National Center for Public Health said in a study, adding that a failure to act could push treatment costs up by a third by 2025, amounting to a further 4.8 billion tugrik (1.44 million pounds) a year in the capital.