The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that climate change will have a serious and damaging impact on human health in South East Asia, including India, as air quality will suffer and respiratory diseases will be exacerbated. The six diseases that would adversely impact human health include respiratory diseases, vector-borne diseases (malaria and dengue), water-borne diseases (diarrhoea and cholera), malnutrition, injuries and psychological stress.
WHO Report
WHO stated that urgent action was needed to strengthen the existing health systems to deal with the potential increase in health risks due to climate change.
Cases of climate change-related illness like allergic diseases, trauma from extreme weather events and heat stress will rise. Greater air pollution would increase respiratory illnesses and higher temperatures could raise the risk of infectious diseases like gastroenteritis and mosquito borne ailments like dengue. Clearly, climate change will place our health system under increasing stress—and always the elderly, children and the vulnerable will be hardest hit.
According to the WHO, heat waves would be more intense and of longer duration, mainly affecting the most vulnerable populations in children and elderly through heat strokes and cardiovascular complications. In this context, the WHO was moving health to the centre of the climate change dialogue and had made the protection of health from the effects of climate change the theme of the World Health Day (April 7).
IPCC Message
WHO Report
WHO stated that urgent action was needed to strengthen the existing health systems to deal with the potential increase in health risks due to climate change.
Cases of climate change-related illness like allergic diseases, trauma from extreme weather events and heat stress will rise. Greater air pollution would increase respiratory illnesses and higher temperatures could raise the risk of infectious diseases like gastroenteritis and mosquito borne ailments like dengue. Clearly, climate change will place our health system under increasing stress—and always the elderly, children and the vulnerable will be hardest hit.
According to the WHO, heat waves would be more intense and of longer duration, mainly affecting the most vulnerable populations in children and elderly through heat strokes and cardiovascular complications. In this context, the WHO was moving health to the centre of the climate change dialogue and had made the protection of health from the effects of climate change the theme of the World Health Day (April 7).
IPCC Message
The UN Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has stated that the Himalayas will experience a rapid glacier melt with a rate of recession higher than anywhere else in the world. Melting glaciers and distributed rainfall patterns will trigger floods, landslides, debris flows and droughts. This will increase risks in Bhutan, India and Nepal, among other countries.
In Bangladesh, rice and wheat production might drop by eight per cent and 32 per cent degrees by the year 2050. For India, recent studies predict two to five decreaes in yield potential of wheat and maize for a temperature rise of 0.5 to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The net cereal production in the South East Asian countries is projected to decline by at least 4 to 10 per cent by the end of this century under the most conservative climate change scenario.
The most vulnerable people in the region will be the poor because they have fewer resources to adopt to the rapid changes of the natural environment on which their livelihoods depend.
In Bangladesh, rice and wheat production might drop by eight per cent and 32 per cent degrees by the year 2050. For India, recent studies predict two to five decreaes in yield potential of wheat and maize for a temperature rise of 0.5 to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The net cereal production in the South East Asian countries is projected to decline by at least 4 to 10 per cent by the end of this century under the most conservative climate change scenario.
The most vulnerable people in the region will be the poor because they have fewer resources to adopt to the rapid changes of the natural environment on which their livelihoods depend.
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