According to the Mongolian Dermatology Centre, 2-3 percent of the country’s population has pollen allergies. Recently, allergy related diseases have been increasing due to urbanization, environmental pollution, ecological deterioration and desertification.

In the winter, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s rapidly expanding capital, is choked by acrid grey smoke over the centre and surrounding suburbs; in the summer it dusty. The city’s centre has modern skyscrapers that look out over a sea of Soviet tower blocks; beyond this, sprawl the 180,000 gers, or yurts, home to the city’s most recent  rivals and source of the chronic  air pollution. The ger is a perfect dwelling for the nomad in the isolation of the steppe – but en masse, thousands of them can generate serious air pollution. Twenty percent of Mongolia’s population has migrated to Ulaanbaatar over the past three decades, literally doubling the size of the city.