“If you want to interpret climate change in the easiest way, water is the main medium through which climate change is felt, either you have lots of it in form of floods, or none of it in form of drought”.
Dr Muchangi-Amref
The impact of climate change on health unfolds with experts warning of its toll on public health in Kenya. Senior Research Analyst at AFIDEP Bernard Onyango says the health crisis triggered by climate change is underestimated yet it has the potential of reversing decades of social advances.
“The impact of climate change may seem modest in the short term, however more worry is on the non linear long term risks. Climate Change is not fully understood , there is need for more evidence generation and cross sectoral partnerships for mitigation, adoption and resilience. We already have evidence to ignite policy and program action that prioritise health in climate change”, he said.
He was addressing a webinar on the hidden health impacts of climate change organised by HERAF, an NGO in Kenya that seeks to transform health systems to enhance equitable access to health care. The CEO Miano Munene said climate change is evolving into a significant public health crisis.
“We want to spark discussions on the impact of climate change on public health to help develop advocacy programs. Climate change is affecting health systems and compromising access and the rights of patients to health care. Rising temperatures are affecting disease patterns, food production, worsening infectious diseases and increasing cases of mental health. We need to have discussions on what to do to have health systems that are resilient to climate change,” he said.
There are concerns that Kenyas approach to climate change is in silos with AMREF’s director of population health and environment Dr Martin Muchangi leading calls for a multi sectoral approach.
“We must work towards one health by adopting a multi sectoral approach that implements strategies holistically. Incase of malaria prevalence, we need to work with the transport sector, engineers, agriculture sector to determine breeding grounds and how to eliminate them, ” he said.
He proposed enhanced research in Africa that taps into indigenous knowledge for mitigation and adaptation. “Our grandparents survived the challenges posed by climate change, we need to harness citizen science with empirical research and form a whole picture in developing mitigation, adaptation and resilience strategies,”.
Kenya has community health volunteers CHVs as primary contacts in managing public health. Dr Muchangi feels building their capacity to link climate change to health, will enable them address health challenges with a climate change lens.
He proposes a health national adaptation plan that will address health literacy, build capacity of the health workforce and strengthen the health infrastructure to cope with the strain of climate change on health.
The World Health Organisation WHO says 3.6 billion people are susceptible to climate change and projects 250,000 deaths annually between 2030-2050 from climate change related illness. These include undernutrition, malaria, diarrhoea, heat stress and other vector borne diseases.
AFIDEP says low income to middle income countries with weak health systems will be the worst hit yet they are the least prepared and lack response to address impact of climate change and health.
| IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON PUBLIC HEALTH-LANCET REPORT 2023 | |
| Drought- Malnutrition, reduced food production, Low intake of quality food, injuries Floods- Land loss, waterborne diseases, vector borne, Heat stress- loss of 490billion potential labor hours, Older people susceptible, mental health Air Pollution- Asthma, adverse birth outcomes, respiratory illnesses |