WHO Confirms Correlation Between Climate Change and Disease

WHO Confirms Correlation Between Climate Change and Increase In Diseases In the Pacific

By Makereta Komai, PACNEWS: http://www.pina.com.fj/index.php?p=pacnews&m=pacnews

5 July 2013, Nadi, Fiji -The World Health Organisation (WHO) confirms there is a clear correlation between climate change and increases in diseases in the Pacific.

For the Pacific, WHO identified malaria, dengue fever, diarrhea, typhoid and leptospirosis are among the important climate-sensitive diseases.

Dr Rokho Kim, WHO’s Environmental Health Specialist based in Fiji said evidence suggests that certain weather conditions are related to an increase in certain diseases. 

“We have found that after a heavy drought in a country, there is an increase in cases of diarrhea. In a situation like that, we advice the Ministry of Health to prepare for possible increases in diarrhea cases. It is important to strengthen notifiable diseases surveillance programme which includes training of doctors to report to the government and respond quickly and timely to the situation.

“This early warning system is very effective. We are working with governments to establish reliable good surveillance programme and well trained doctors to diagnose climate-sensitive diseases at the early stage.

WHO estimates that 150,000 people die from climate related diseases every year.

“Ten years ago, there were only four conditions – malaria, diarrhea, malnutrition and extreme weather – considered in our calculation of disease burden because of strong evidence. WHO is recalculating the burden of disease with an extra eight conditions added to the list because new evidence emerged in the past decade, thanks to the research on health impacts of climate change. We expect the updated estimation will be much greater than the previous one.

Dr Kim is encouraging Pacific Island Countries to develop their own health sector action plan to monitor and respond to climate-sensitive diseases.

“In Fiji, health is already mentioned as a national strategy. It will be good for the health sector to develop its own action plan as a process of the implementation of the national strategy. Such an action plan should outline how the health system should respond to prevent disease outbreaks.”

A good example was the response of the Fiji Government to Tropical Cyclone Evan in December last year, said Dr Kim.

“After TC Evan, the National Disaster Management Office that was leading the response team including the health cluster. The Ministry of Health took the lead in dealing with all the disaster-related health issues, supported by WHO and UNICEF.

“The response of the Fijian Government was admirable because of the amount of preparation put into the responses for the Tropical Cyclone. If Government didn’t prepare and respond well, it could have been a big disaster.

“It’s a very good lesson of how government, the people and the donor community can work together to co-ordinate their actions to prevent loss and damage during disastrous weather events.

Based on the experiences of Cyclone Evan last year, Fiji’s Ministry of Health prepared a health emergency and disaster management action plan.

‘Fiji is the first in the Pacific to have plan like this. It is a model country for the Pacific. I have already received a request from other countries and we might share the Fiji model with them.”

ENDS

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