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Climate change and public health

The indisputable link between climate change and public health has been at the centre of many international discussions in recent times. The Nobel Prize 2007 that has been awarded to Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore only goes to underline how important it is for nations, especially developing nations, to come together to address the threat that climate changes are now posing to the health and well-being of its pop ulations.

The need to address the impact of climate changes on human health has become so pertinent that the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced last week that its theme for the World Health Day 2008 (April 9) will be `Protecting health from climate change.’

A recent report of the IPCC said that climate changes can cause death and diseases through natural disasters like floods or heat waves. It is pointed out that most of the common and dangerous vector-borne diseases like malaria and dengue are highly sensitive to changing global temperatures. Reduced rainfall could lead to a short supply of safe drinking water, which could lead to water-borne diseases like diarrhoea. And the impact of climate variability is likely to affect vulnerable communities — especially those in thickly populated coastal areas — in developing countries like India.

According to one recent study by WHO, climate change directly or indirectly contributes to about 77,000 deaths annually in Asia and the Pacific, which is about half the total number of deaths in the world attributable to climate change. The 1999 cyclone in Orissa which killed an estimated 10,000 people and the July 26, 2005, floods in Mumbai have all been listed by WHO as some of the disasters that can be linked to changes in climate.

Reducing vulnerability of public health to climate changes is possible by strengthening the existing health systems and programmes and by educating communities about the link between environment and health.

Re-thinking health in a changing environment should thus become a priority for all health professionals and policy makers. It should be presumed that the current burden of diseases in the health sector—mosquito-borne diseases like dengue, malaria or chikungunya in Kerala—are likely to be worsened in the coming years due to climatic changes. The recent outbreak of chikungunya in the State has already established how an errant pattern of rainfall and environmental factors can devastate a delicately balanced public health system.

Several international studies have pointed out how dengue transmission has increased dramatically in tropical nations due to failed vector control programmes, unplanned urbanisation and increased travellers. Climate changes could thus lead to increased endemic areas for dengue globally, it is pointed out.The stress should thus be on strengthening preventive action, which should not be difficult in the case of climate-sensitive and infectious diseases like dengue or chikungunya, public health activists point out. These should be integrated with the monitoring of climatic and environmental changes which could lead to disease outbreaks.

C. Maya

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