Climate change is the single biggest health threat facing humanity, according to the UN. Climate impacts are already harming health, through air pollution, disease, extreme weather events, forced displacement, pressures on mental health, and increased hunger and poor nutrition in places where people cannot grow or find sufficient food. Every year, environmental factors take the lives of around 13 million people. Changing weather patterns are expanding diseases, and extreme weather events increase deaths and make it difficult for health care systems to keep up.
Climate change, air and water pollution are the causes of millions of deaths across the world through exposing human being to various kinds of illnesses. Among the illnesses that these factors are causing at the moment are cardiovascular diseases, lung cancer as well as various communicable diseases that are associated viruses and bacteria among others.
As a developing continent Africa is more vulnerable to be a victim of the overall impacts of climate change including that of the health risks. Therefore reducing the health risks associated with climate change as well as other factors is a necessary action that should not be ignored.
Recently health, under the patronage of Moroccan King Mohammed VI, Moroccan Ministry of Health and Social Protection, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Rural Development and Water and Forests, in collaboration with the “African Global Health” association had held the Second African Conference on Health Risk Reduction, in the Moroccan City of Marrakesh.
The conference which took place under the theme ” Health in Africa: Water, Environment and Food Security” aimed to serve as an essential forum to shed light on the current state of healthcare and food security systems in Africa. Its primary objective is to establish an African framework based on the experiences of African nations and the insights of public health experts.
It focused on effective preventive measures to mitigate the effects of human, social, political and economic crises. Ultimately the goal is to develop a common health policy to address emerging risks and crises. The conference also provided an opportunity to assess the implementation of recommendations made in the previous edition and will lead to the formulation of new binding recommendations, that will guide policymakers in crafting robust health policies and systems.
The conference further highlighted best practices in governance, financing and financial sustainability, with a focus on critical sectors that impact health risk reduction, food security improvement and the ecosystems preservation, all of which have a direct impact on public health and quality of life. The Second African Conference on Health
Risk Reduction will bring together numerous prominent figures from Africa and other regions of the world, including ministers, ambassadors, experts, scientific and political personalities, as well as representatives from international non-governmental organizations. This international event will provide a conducive platform for the exchange of information, experiences, and perspectives on health risk reduction. It will also address crucial challenges related to water, the environment, and their impact on food and health security in Africa.
The conference has dwelt at length on diverse health issues that are caused by factors like climate change, air pollution, and substance abuse like drinking alcohol, smoking cigarette and drug abuse, as well as natural disasters like earth quake and flooding.
Actually health risk reduction so far has been associated with addressing the health hazards caused by drug use like smoking and alcohol drinking. According to biomedcentral.com, harm reduction refers to interventions aimed at reducing the negative effects of health behaviors without necessarily extinguishing the problematic health behaviors completely.
The vast majority of the harm reduction literature focuses on the harms of drug use and on specific harm reduction strategies, such as syringe exchange, rather than on the harm reduction philosophy as a whole. Given that a harm reduction approach can address other risk behaviors that often occur alongside drug use and that harm reduction principles have been applied to harms such as sex work, eating disorders, and tobacco use, a natural evolution of the harm reduction philosophy is to extend it to other health risk behaviors and to a broader healthcare audience.
Air pollution and climate change affect each other through complex interactions in the atmosphere. Air pollution is intricately linked with climate change because both problems come largely from the same sources, such as emissions from burning fossil fuels. Both are threats to people’s health and the environment worldwide.
Air pollution is a familiar environmental health hazard. It is a mix of hazardous substances from both human-made and natural sources.
Vehicle emissions, fuel oils and natural gas to heat homes, by-products of manufacturing and power generation, particularly coal-fueled power plants, and fumes from chemical production are the primary sources of human-made air pollution.
Nature releases hazardous substances into the air, such as smoke from wildfires, which are often caused by people; ash and gases from volcanic eruptions; and gases, like methane, which are emitted from decomposing organic matter in soils.
Research on air pollution and health effects continually advances. Public health concern now includes cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases, diabetes mellitus, obesity, and reproductive, neurological, and immune system disorders. For instance air pollution causes diseases through the fine particulate that are the major causes of diseases like cardio vascular mortality. This makes people to live with toxic air along with oxygen.
One of the panelists of the conference, Physician from Egypt Dr Mohammad Al Tayeb explained that as a result of this about seven billion people are vulnerable to the disease causing particles that are outcomes of air pollution out of which 7 million of them die annually due to heart attack. This makes it among the top five causes of mortality and the death rate is expected to double by 2050.
On top of that air pollution is also the main cause of lung cancer even more than smoking tobacco. To avert these deadly impacts it is important to minimize the burning of fossil fuels and increase the use of electric vehicles and electric buses.
Senior Advisor to Africa CDC Director General and research Dr Nicaise Ndembi also indicated during the conference that Global warming is also another contributor to communicable diseases. The increasing temperature contributes to the flourishing and quick spread of disease causing viruses and bacteria. There is an association between diseases and temperature.
One of the Co-organizers of the conference African Global Health, indicated that the goals of the conference will be achieved through Health Harm Reduction with a particular focus on water, environment, and food security in line with the relevant SDGs. With a commitment to collaboration, innovation, and equity, we envision a future where African nations not only achieve universal healthcare but also contribute their expertise and resources to uplift health systems across the global South.
Furthermore, it stated in a resolution that this conference will produce a declaration on these issues that will also serve to pave the way for the following resolutions: to promote strong collaborative work under the stewardship of African leaders and experts, both public and private progressing African health development, to create a common solidarity movement in which South-South expertise is mobilized and shared for continental sovereignty in health management, to foster collaboration and thought leadership between African countries to create unified pan-African evidence-based health policies, health and disaster preparedness frameworks, and application of technology and innovations, to adopt a Pan-African Charter for Health Harm Reduction that incorporates medical, social, economic, and psychological factors related to population health in diverse African communities and also to enable the fruitful and intensive joint work streams between experts from Africa and other continents open to establishing partnerships and Global Health Bureaus.
BY ZEKARAIS WOLDEMARIAM
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD WEDNESDAY 4 OCTOBER 2023
