The World Health Organization has called on the Member States to build on adaptation and mitigation approaches to the outbreak of diseases so as to meet up with the growing population of about 2.5 billion people projected in Africa by 2050.
WHO Regional Director for Africa Dr. Matshidiso Moeti made the call at the World Health Day 2022 Message with the theme, “Our Planet, Our Health.”
She said the theme of this year’s celebration serves as a timely reminder of the inextricable link between the planet and our health, as the burden of non-communicable and infectious diseases rises alongside the growing incidence of climate-related challenges.
Dr. Moeti stressed the need for collaboration to deliver essential health services during future extreme events while containing the growing incidence of environment- and lifestyle-related diseases.
She said “we can expect burgeoning urbanization into areas exposed to natural hazards, and a concomitant increase in associated injuries, disease and deaths.
We cannot afford to lose sight of the fundamental truth that the climate crisis, the single biggest threat facing humanity today, is also very much a health crisis.
This year’s Climate change is manifesting in increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, changing rainfall patterns, and more frequent and severe extreme weather conditions. WHO estimates that more than 13 million annual deaths globally are due to avoidable environmental causes, including the climate crisis.
With direct consequences for the key determinants of health, climate change is negatively impacting air and water quality, food security, and human habitat and shelter. The knock-on effect for the burden of heart and lung disease, stroke, and cancer, among others, is evident from statistics that point to NCDs representing a growing proportion of Africa’s disease burden.
In the African Region, NCDs are set to overtake communicable diseases, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional conditions combined, to become the leading cause of death by 2030. COVID-19, along with spiraling obesity, diabetes, and hypertension rates, compounds the challenge, highlighting the urgency of a multi-sectoral response.
During the past two decades, most public health events have been climate-related, whether they were vector- or water-borne, transmitted from animals to humans, or the result of natural disasters. For example, diarrhoeal diseases are the third leading cause of disease and death in children younger than five in Africa, a significant proportion of which is preventable through safe drinking water, and adequate sanitation and hygiene.
However, one in every three Africans faces water scarcity, while about 400 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa alone lack basic access to drinking water. About 45% of all child deaths are also associated with malnutrition, which is known to be linked to diarrhea.
Meanwhile, a heating world is seeing mosquitos spread diseases further and faster than ever before, with serious consequences for African countries which reported 94% of the 229 million malaria cases recorded globally in 2019. Deaths due to malaria in Africa accounted for about 51% of all malaria deaths worldwide.
In 2018, African health and environment ministers endorsed the 10-year Libreville Declaration on Health and Environment in Africa, signed in 2008. This is a WHO-supported framework aimed at promoting government investment in addressing environmental problems that impact human health – such as air pollution, contamination of water sources, and ecosystem damage.
Under the auspices of this Declaration, we, as WHO in the African Region, support Member States to conduct vulnerability, situation, and needs assessments and create Health National Adaptation Plans (H-NAPs). We also support countries to submit National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), comprising essential public health interventions, to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.”
World Health Day is observed annually on 7 April, since 1950, aimed at commemorating the founding of the World Health Organization (WHO) two years previously.
