Climate change- High temperatures increase human, animal diseases
Dec 06, 2009
WHEN George Wanakina, the senior environment officer of Manafwa district, was a young boy, the weather on the periphery of Mt. Elgon Forest was cool and wet and the region was endowed with several tree species.
By Frederick Womakuyu
WHEN George Wanakina, the senior environment officer of Manafwa district, was a young boy, the weather on the periphery of Mt. Elgon Forest was cool and wet and the region was endowed with several tree species.
By then, mosquitoes were non-existent and few or no people suffered from malaria. But today, Wanakina says, the district experiences dry spells and malaria is endemic.
“I recently visited Manafwa Health Centre IV to sensitise people about climate change, but when I compared malaria cases today with those of 1979, there was a big difference.
“Today, the health centre receives 100 malaria cases a day compared to five per week in 1979. Change in climate has created a favourable habitat for mosquitoes to breed,†he says.
As the world braces for the climate change conference scheduled for today in Copenhagen, Denmark, Wanakina’s region is just one but many parts of the globe that need urgent attention.
According to the 2009 State of the Uganda Population Report, Uganda’s average temperature will increase by 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next 20 years due to global warming.
But the report shows the country is already having erratic weather patterns, with some areas receiving little or no rainfall and others experiencing floods.
The World Health Organisation’s country representative, Dr. Joaquim Saweka, cautions that changes in temperature are likely to have a significant impact on food security and the health of both human and wildlife.
“The melting ice and increasing floods will change the distribution of dangerous pathogens. The health of wild animals is tightly linked to the ecosystems in which they live and the environment surrounding them.
Even minor disturbances in their environment can have far reaching consequences on what disease they might encounter and transmit as the climate changes.
New diseases are likely to emerge and areas which were not endemic to certain diseases will succumb,†Saweka explains.
Achilles Byaruhanga, the executive director of Nature Uganda, says in the past, malaria vectors were not endemic in high altitude districts of Uganda — Mbale and Kabale — unlike today.
“The weather in these areas has changed from cold to hot due to climate change, creating a favourable environment for mosquitoes to breed and multiply. We are seeing more cases of malaria today than in the past due to climate change.â€
Byaruhanga says statistics from the Ministry of Health indicate that Kabale Hospital, which used to receive about 15 cases of malaria per day in 1972, now records over 200 cases.
Mbale Regional Hospital, which used to get 32 cases per day in 1972, receives 201 cases daily.
Today, the Government spends more money on malaria treatment than any other disease. According to statistics from the Ministry of Health, in the 1990s, the Government spent sh5,310 on malaria treatment per person annually, compared to the current sh60,000.
The ministry says in the 1990s, they were only focusing on clinical treatment of the disease using the line drug chloroquine.
But after realising that they had to carry out community sensitisation to respond to ecological changes like deforestation and weather patterns which favoured breeding of mosquitoes, they increased funding to malaria control from sh100b annually in 2000 to sh134b annually in 2004.
Saweka adds that in areas where floods are common, malaria, water-borne diseases and poor sanitation will increase and new disease pathogens will emerge.
“We shall see frequent outbreaks of cholera, swine flu and even Hepatitis E like what happened in northern Uganda recently.
This is because changes in the weather will mostly likely result into the creation of favourable conditions for disease pathogens to migrate or thrive.â€
Saweka adds that the increase in temperatures in Uganda has resulted into prolonged dry spells that have prevented crop farming, leading to famine and starvation.
“Floods destroyed crops in Teso region in 2007. This was followed by a long dry spell and the end result was famine. We saw people starving to death and others developing malnutrition-related illnesses that eventually killed them,†he says.
Way forward
Dr. Saweka explains that climate change is a global issue and countries emitting a lot of carbon into the atmosphere should reduce the emissions to reduce the effect.
Dr. Makumbi adds that at the local and national level, the ministry of health has set up a climate change department that is sensitising people to prepare them for climate change.
“We are also monitoring any epidemic outbreak. We are also distributing mosquito nets and drugs to health centres in case of any outbreak,†he says.
Byaruhanga urges the Government to have a political will to protect the environment. “Many wetlands and forests have been destroyed because politicians encourage people to occupy them. This should stop and the perpetrators be arrested,†he says.
WHEN George Wanakina, the senior environment officer of Manafwa district, was a young boy, the weather on the periphery of Mt. Elgon Forest was cool and wet and the region was endowed with several tree species.
By then, mosquitoes were non-existent and few or no people suffered from malaria. But today, Wanakina says, the district experiences dry spells and malaria is endemic.
“I recently visited Manafwa Health Centre IV to sensitise people about climate change, but when I compared malaria cases today with those of 1979, there was a big difference.
“Today, the health centre receives 100 malaria cases a day compared to five per week in 1979. Change in climate has created a favourable habitat for mosquitoes to breed,†he says.
As the world braces for the climate change conference scheduled for today in Copenhagen, Denmark, Wanakina’s region is just one but many parts of the globe that need urgent attention.
According to the 2009 State of the Uganda Population Report, Uganda’s average temperature will increase by 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next 20 years due to global warming.
But the report shows the country is already having erratic weather patterns, with some areas receiving little or no rainfall and others experiencing floods.
The World Health Organisation’s country representative, Dr. Joaquim Saweka, cautions that changes in temperature are likely to have a significant impact on food security and the health of both human and wildlife.
“The melting ice and increasing floods will change the distribution of dangerous pathogens. The health of wild animals is tightly linked to the ecosystems in which they live and the environment surrounding them.
Even minor disturbances in their environment can have far reaching consequences on what disease they might encounter and transmit as the climate changes.
New diseases are likely to emerge and areas which were not endemic to certain diseases will succumb,†Saweka explains.
Achilles Byaruhanga, the executive director of Nature Uganda, says in the past, malaria vectors were not endemic in high altitude districts of Uganda — Mbale and Kabale — unlike today.
“The weather in these areas has changed from cold to hot due to climate change, creating a favourable environment for mosquitoes to breed and multiply. We are seeing more cases of malaria today than in the past due to climate change.â€
Byaruhanga says statistics from the Ministry of Health indicate that Kabale Hospital, which used to receive about 15 cases of malaria per day in 1972, now records over 200 cases.
Mbale Regional Hospital, which used to get 32 cases per day in 1972, receives 201 cases daily.
Today, the Government spends more money on malaria treatment than any other disease. According to statistics from the Ministry of Health, in the 1990s, the Government spent sh5,310 on malaria treatment per person annually, compared to the current sh60,000.
The ministry says in the 1990s, they were only focusing on clinical treatment of the disease using the line drug chloroquine.
But after realising that they had to carry out community sensitisation to respond to ecological changes like deforestation and weather patterns which favoured breeding of mosquitoes, they increased funding to malaria control from sh100b annually in 2000 to sh134b annually in 2004.
Saweka adds that in areas where floods are common, malaria, water-borne diseases and poor sanitation will increase and new disease pathogens will emerge.
“We shall see frequent outbreaks of cholera, swine flu and even Hepatitis E like what happened in northern Uganda recently.
This is because changes in the weather will mostly likely result into the creation of favourable conditions for disease pathogens to migrate or thrive.â€
Saweka adds that the increase in temperatures in Uganda has resulted into prolonged dry spells that have prevented crop farming, leading to famine and starvation.
“Floods destroyed crops in Teso region in 2007. This was followed by a long dry spell and the end result was famine. We saw people starving to death and others developing malnutrition-related illnesses that eventually killed them,†he says.
Way forward
Dr. Saweka explains that climate change is a global issue and countries emitting a lot of carbon into the atmosphere should reduce the emissions to reduce the effect.
Dr. Makumbi adds that at the local and national level, the ministry of health has set up a climate change department that is sensitising people to prepare them for climate change.
“We are also monitoring any epidemic outbreak. We are also distributing mosquito nets and drugs to health centres in case of any outbreak,†he says.
Byaruhanga urges the Government to have a political will to protect the environment. “Many wetlands and forests have been destroyed because politicians encourage people to occupy them. This should stop and the perpetrators be arrested,†he says.