Health care to bear the brunt of climate change

B M Sajjad Hossain Day by day climatic changes will be a greater cause for the disruption of the ecosystem's services which support human health and livelihood. Due to economic retreat, for the developing countries, it will be really difficult to recover the impacts on health care done by climate change. It will also help to increase the malnutrition problem and consequent disorders with special implications for the child growth and their proper development. Nonetheless, the whole natural system will be affected; even the rainfall patterns can be expected to lead to an increased burden of diarrhoeal diseases and to the altered spatial distribution of some infectious disease vectors too. World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that the modest anthropogenic climate change had occurred since 1970 and claims 150000 lives annually which continued till 2000. The current and emerging climate change-related health risks are more in Asia and the Pacific region. Here, heat stress, water-and food-borne diseases (i.e. cholera, diarrhoea) are associated with extreme weather events like heat waves, storms, floods and flash floods and droughts. The vector-borne diseases like dengue and malaria may be spread out here and there. Even the climate change will help to raise the pollutions level too. That is way, the respiratory diseases will be more ordinary due to air pollution and food production will decrease due to water pollution. So day to day, the water security, malnutrition and psychosocial concerns will be the important issues to be considered deeply. Most of these risks and diseases are not new, even the health sector is already tackling these problems, but the capacity to cope with potentially increasing levels of these risks and diseases is very much limited, and particularly in under developed countries like Bangladesh. Due to increase in temperature, some serious problems like malnutrition, diarrhoea and malaria is estimated to kill 3.7 million, 1.9 million and 0.9 million people respectively per year all around the world. Even warmer temperatures will have adverse effects on food production, water availability and the spread of disease vectors. Changes in climate are likely to lengthen the transmission season of important vector-borne diseases like dengue, malaria and to alter their geographic range, potentially reaching regions that lack either population immunity or a strong public health infrastructure. WHO found that already climate change effects have decreased the status of the natural apparatus on human body and destroyed wildlife. Human-induced climate change significantly amplifies the likelihood of heat waves as well as increasing the possibility of heat strokes, cardiovascular and respiratory disorders. More variable precipitation patterns are likely to compromise the supply of fresh water, increasing risks of water-borne diseases like cholera, and outbreaks of diarrhoea. Nonetheless rising temperatures and variable precipitation are likely to decrease the production of staple foods in many of the poorest regions which leads to increase in the risks of malnutrition, especially for the children and pregnant woman. Rising sea levels increase the risk of coastal flooding, and may lead to displacements of thousands of people living in coastal areas. The most vulnerable areas in South-east Asian (SEA) countries are the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta in Bangladesh, small islands of other countries as well as the entire coastline of the Indian Ocean. The government estimates that crops in more than 1.6 million acres of land were damaged in the year 2008. Nonetheless over 462,815 livestock are confirmed killed, which represents loss of critical household assets, with an associated loss to wealth and income, as well as a loss in milk production for own consumption. Extensive damage to roads and public buildings was also reported, including 1,355 educational institutions destroyed and another 7,847 partially damaged in that year too. Loss of livelihood will increase psychosocial stress in the affected populations. The measurement of the impact of climate change on health can only be very approximate. However, WHO's quantitative assessment concluded that the effects of climate change since the mid-1970s may have caused at least 160,000 additional deaths annually after 2000. Globally but specially the low income countries where malnutrition is widespread, the level of education is poor and with weak infrastructures, will have the most difficulty in adapting to climate change and related health hazards. The government has to develop and implement national action plans for health that are integrated into existing national plans on adaptation and mitigation to climate change. So national and regional climate forecasting information, including climate change projections, should be fully utilised and facilitated the development of community-based resource management. The costs and benefits of different interventions should be determined too; where the international organisations like WHO may help by providing specific climate change-related technical guidance for vulnerability and adaptation assessments and surveillance systems. This process may be a helpful method for identifying risks to vulnerable groups, quantifying the burden of disease from climate change, and quantifying costs and benefits of health adaptation measures to ensure comparability across the SEA countries. Rich and developed countries, those who are mostly responsible for the harming to the natural eco-system and its services, may come forward with technical and financial support to build a strong national action plans on mitigation and adaptation, including conducting research on the health impacts of climate change. They may also provide training programes on methodologies and assist in the assessment and management of health risks due to climate change. So it is time for the Bangladesh government to make the plan properly and work accordingly for the health sector development; that is why, it will be able to tackle the imminent problems due to climate change. The writer is a columnist and development researcher. He may be reached at email: sajjad_aiubbd@yahoo.com