WHO Director General Dr Margaret Chan said yesterday, 7th April 2008, World Health Day, that climate change was already affecting human health and was giving “a glimpse of the challenges public health will have to confront on a large scale”.
Chan said the scientific evidence that the planet is warming is “unequivocal”: average air and sea temperatures are rising, ice caps are melting, and sea levels are increasing. This should help us understand and prepare for coming challenges she said, at the heart of which is the main concern:
“Climate change endangers human health,” said Chan.
“The warming of the planet will be gradual, but the effects of extreme weather events — more storms, floods, droughts and heat waves — will be abrupt and acutely felt,” she added.
Chan explained that these trends disrupt the fundamentals of human health: “air, water, food, shelter and freedom from disease”.
Many human diseases are climate sensitive, and warming up the Earth will increase the numbers of people exposed to diseases that today kill millions. These include malnutrition (kills over 3.5 million people a year), diarrhoeal diseases (kill over 1.8 million), and malaria (kills nearly 1 million).
Chan said we have already experienced examples of “images of the future”, for instance:
- 2003 heat wave in Europe: 70,000 more people died than would normally be expected during the summer.
- Rift Valley fever in Africa: major outbreaks usually occur during rains which are expected to increase as the climate changes.
- Hurricane Katrina which hit Caribbean and eastern side of North America in 2005: over 1,800 deaths and thousands lost their homes, with widespspread destruction of health systems in affected regions.
- Cholera epidemics in Bangladesh: these have been linked to flooding and “unsafe” water.
- Malaria in East African highlands: the warming of temperatures in the last three decades has been beneficial for the malaria-carrying mosquito and led to an increase in disease transmission.
While stressing that these changes cannot be linked to climate change alone, Chan said they serve as examples of the types of challenges we can expect to face as a result of climate change. Such events will become more frequent and more intense said Chan. They will put a heavy strain on resources in many parts of the world that already heavily stressed.
Chan also spoke of how the consequences of climate change will not be evenly distributed, despite it being a global phenomenon:
“In short, climate change can affect problems that are already huge, largely concentrated in the developing world, and difficult to control.”
The WHO is already sponsoring research and assessment of how to protect human health from climate change, particularly where it affects vulnerable groups such as women and children in developing countries.
The organization will be advising member states on what changes to make to their health systems so they can best protect their people.
WHO is partnering with a number of other bodies, including the UN Environment Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and the UN World Meteorological Organization to prepare a plan of work and research to get a better idea of the nature and scale of health vulnerability and to devise strategies and tools to protect health.
Chan said WHO recognizes the urgency to help countries find ways to cope with the growing problem. Help is needed in improving systems for surveillance and forecasting and providing stronger basic healthcare.
She said that:
“Through its own actions and its support to Member States, WHO is committed to do everything it can to ensure all is done to protect human health from climate change.”
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon endorsed Chan’s message. He also published a message yesterday to coincide with World Health Day. In his message, Ban said that:
“Climate change is sometimes debated as if it affected only the planet and not the people living on it.”
World Health Day presented an opportunity to turn the spotlight on how climate change will affect human health.
He reiterated Chan’s message about how climate change will disrupt the fundamental determinants of nutrition and health, and lead to:
“An upsurge in human suffering caused by injury, disease, malnutrition and death.”
Ban also said the impact will be most severely felt in poor countries, the ones who have contributed the least to the global crisis.
By 2020, said Ban, up to a quarter of a billion Africans will be under increased water stress and estimates suggest crop yields in some African countries will drop by 50 per cent.
Ban stressed the need to meet the UN’s Millenium Development Goals, especially:
“Cutting childhood mortality to empowering women, as a central component of the international response to climate change.”
Click here for more information about the UN Millenium Development Goals.
Sources: WHO press statement.
Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD