NEW DELHI: 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, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
At a press conference here on Monday to mark the World Health Day, Samlee Plianbangchang, Regional Director, WHO South East Asia, said the six diseases that would adversely impact human health are respiratory diseases, vector-borne diseases (malaria and dengue), water-borne diseases (diarrohea and cholera), malnutrition, injuries and psychosocial stress.
Urgent action was needed to strengthen the existing health systems to deal with the potential increase in health risks due to climate change, he said.
According to Dr. Plianbanchang, 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 this year’s World Health Day.
The UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said the Himalayas will experience a rapid glacier melt with a rate of recession higher than anywhere else in the world. Melting glaciers and disturbed rainfall patterns will trigger floods, landslips, 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 8 per cent and 32 per cent respectively by the year 2050. For India, recent studies predict 2-5 per cent decrease 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 adapt to the rapid changes of the natural environment on which their livelihoods depend.
In a message, IPCC Chairperson R. K. Pachauri has cautioned governments against taking the threat of climate change lightly.
“As of now there is no evidence to link the changing disease patterns to climate change, but if we wait for evidence before taking any action, it might be too late. We definitely need to look at this entire set of problems,” he said.
