Impact of climate change on health
CLIMATE change is one of the most complex challenges of the century, affecting all countries. With the warming of the planet and changes in climatic patterns, densely populated countries with long coastal belts, like ours, are most vulnerable. Many people might face loss of life and property and become climatic refugee as the sea level rises. These are the reasons why Prime Minister Sheik Hasina demanded a special climatic fund in the Commonwealth conference.
Bangladesh will bear the brunt of effects of climate change, especially in our endeavours to overcome poverty, attain economic growth and ensure health for all. It is climate change that threatens to undermine our achievements, erode our hard earned gains and seriously weaken our development initiatives in agriculture, forestry, fisheries and all other areas of economy and bio-diversity activities related to income generation for reducing poverty.
Bangladesh is vulnerable to sea level rise, repeated cyclones, deeper penetration of saline water, erratic rainfall, flood, drought, river-bank erosion etc. Unfortunately, all these effects have serious implications on public health, particularly in a country like ours where any change in climate directly effects the huge population.
The vulnerable areas are food, water, and air. Climate change adversely effects food production, availability of water, and increases the spread of water borne diseases. It is also responsible for infectious diseases, ARI, respiratory disorders, asthma, cardiovascular diseases, Nipah virus infections, tuberculosis, hepatitis, skin diseases; mental disorders and also water-borne diseases like cholera, intestinal disorders, diarrheal diseases etc.
Most vector-borne diseases like malaria, dengue, hemorrhagic fever increase due to the changes in the climate, specially in urban areas where solid waste disposal, food contamination and adulteration with dangerous substances are widespread in city corporations and municipalities where more than 30 percent of the population reside.
In consideration of the serious threat of climate change on the economy and human health the Bangladesh government has developed a National Adaptation Program of Actions (NAPA-2005) to project the extent of damage and requirements of assistance to make an adequate response to its impact.
The Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP-2009-2018) seeks about $10 billions (Tk.70,000 crores) to deal with the impact of climate change as the worst victim country. The plan contains around 37 programs and 128 projects, and has already received about $45 million from the national budget. A multi-donor trust fund (MTF) will be established to address the climate change issues.
The Bangladesh government shall participate in the Copenhagen Conference in Denmark and spell out the priorities of most affected countries like Bangladesh.
Unfortunately, the health interventions and requirement of funds for the purpose have not been adequately prioritised since health professionals could not make estimates and identify areas where support is needed in time. Possibly, the needs and priorities of public health and reproductive health care have not been adequately incorporated in the Action Plan. There might not be appropriate representation from the health professionals in this very important conference of the century. It is true that the climate change calamities on public health shall remain unattended if health impacts are not responded to adequately.
India China, Brazil and South Africa have already rejected the plan to reduce the 50% greenhouse gas emission by 2050. Many specialists feel that this conference shall deviate from many issues adopted in the Kyoto Protocol. About 170 countries will participate in the conference and a strong delegation from Bangladesh shall participate with definite plan of actions.
A few countries, understanding the importance of this conference and future strategic approaches that might derive as the outcome of this conference in coming years, have started demonstration of the catastrophic impact of climate change on their economy, geography and public health in particular. Maldives convened a cabinet meeting under the sea and Nepal held a cabinet meeting near Mount Everest. Indonesia, Fiji and Mauritius expressed their great concern at the loss of land and sufferings of the people at large. In Bangladesh, about one-third of the country might be lost due to climate change and natural disasters.
In such a situation, policy response to public health implications of climate change will have to be formulated considering the scale, extent, and timing of the effects, nature, location and intensity of its impact on pubic health. Besides, there should be positive improvement in surveillance with serologic survey and region specific needs, and projections of the requirements and nature of interventions.
The risks factors and response options need to be appropriate for the nature of vulnerabilities that might effect the demographic transitions due to climate change. Health, nutrition and population experts must address these areas of public health issues related to climate change with the required responses. There should be a health protection strategy with identification of the actions for protecting public health with reduction of greenhouse gas emission.
There should be population planning because of the possible displacement of people due to natural disasters and destruction of health and population infrastructure. There is a need for rapid response with adequate treatment, and for major for the purpose.Above all, community support is a must to respond to the health and population program interventions, for which political commitment is indispensable.
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