World Health Day and Climate Change
April 7, 2008 in Enviroment, UN
Review the themes of World Health Day in the past years:
2007: International health security; 2006: Working together for health; 2005: Make every mother and child count; 2004: Road Safety……
This year 2008, the theme – Climate Change.
Honestly, that is quite a surprising theme for me to think about World Health Day. But, when I looked at what WHO director-general Margaret Chan has explained on how climate change endangers health in many fundamental ways, I agree that the theme chosen is much more than making sense.
Chan pinpointed 5 major health consequences of climate change:
|
Impact |
Some of the Consequences |
|
1. Compromise food security |
Malnutrition caused 3.5million deaths per annum.
|
|
2. More frequent extreme weather |
Deaths in natural disasters, outbreak of diseases. |
|
3. Scarcities of water
|
1.8 million deaths resulted from Diarrhoeal per year. |
|
4. Heat Waves |
Trigger cardiovascular/ respiratory disease in huge number |
|
5. Changing patterns of rainfall
|
Malaria and dengue spread to more regions |
Would’t have Jesus said to us today: How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all the serious implications for public health resulting from climate change?
O Lord, forgive our selfishness that cause environmental destruction. Have mercy on us.
