|
BY 2085,
between 50 percent and 60 percent of the world’s
population are expected to be exposed to dengue because
of climate change, according to the latest gloomy report
on the threats mankind faces as the planet gets sicker.
The bad news comes from the World Health Organization
(WHO), even as the Philippines, like most of its Asian
neighbors, continues to grapple with the rising
incidence of the mosquito-borne, deadly disease.
“What we
can see is that the expected climate change is likely to
increase the risks of dengue for many millions of people
over the coming decades,” Dr. John Juliard Go, the WHO’s
national professional officer for noncommunicable
diseases, had told the weekly health forum at Annabel’s
Restaurant in Quezon City on Tuesday.
Dr. Go
explained how climate change affects the health of
people as the world gets warmer at an accelerating rate
while sea levels rise because of melting glaciers in
some areas.
“We are
seeing increasing droughts, floods and storms,” he
continued, and the remark quickly brings to mind the
chilling visualization of how each degree-change in
climate can affect the planet, as laid out in National
Geographic Channel’s amazing documentary film, Six
Degrees Can Change the World, which aired last
weekend.
The
presentations by scientists and other experts in the NGC
film may, at first, sound esoteric to the public, but
the visualization and narrative quickly make up for that
complexity: it is a simple, compelling presentation, one
that can only be ignored at great peril.
Some of
those affected by climate change, as presented in the
NGC script, may seem too detached from Filipinos, such
as the poor polar bear clinging to ever-shrinking ice.
But the impact of climate change has a human face for us
in the Third World, and we are seeing it even now: the
alarming decline in food supplies, whether from the land
or the sea—think rice and dwindling fish catch—and the
rising incidence of diseases like dengue which, as of
March 8, had afflicted a total of 6,653 Filipinos, with
67 deaths, according to the National Epidemiology
Center.
Dengue
fever usually spreads after the rainy season through
stagnant water. The threats grow worse: besides dengue,
the WHO’s Dr. Go predicted the rise of other
climate-related diseases owing to global warming.
Here’s
why: many of the world’s major killers are
weather-sensitive. Each year, undernutrition kills 3.7
million children, while about 1.8 million and 1.1
million die from diarrhea and malaria, respectively.
Filipinos are not new to the experience of facing
diseases induced by bad weather: in 1998, at the height
of the El Niño phenomenon, more than 35,000 Filipinos
were diagnosed with dengue. This, while a surge in
cholera, malaria and typhoid fever was also monitored.
Climate
change impacts on public health directly and indirectly,
says Dr. Go, as extreme weather dries up water supply
and makes conducive the spread of food-borne diseases,
vector and rodent-borne illnesses and food and water
shortages.
The
Philippines, with the trends of an increasing number of
hot days and warm nights, alongside with a decreasing
number of cold days and cool nights, is a logical
candidate for climate-induced change. He notes that
other extreme weather/climate events like intense rains
have grown more frequent, as witness the three weeks of
steady rain in parts of Bicol just over a month ago.
It’s not
just the food supply and health that are at risk from
severe climate changes. Damage to vital infrastructure
and services from the increasingly frequent violent
weather jacks up the cost to taxpayers and aggravates
the scramble for scarce resources in the budget.
All
these concerns had been raised time and again by
human-development advocates who have been badgering
policy planners to provide enough resources to deal with
these threats. As the budget stands, they have been only
half-successful, however, with debt service far
outweighing budgets for health and education. The
leadership seems more obsessed with scoring brownie
points from external tutors by touting an ambitious
balanced-budget goal in the face of spreading misery.
The tiny mosquito that causes so much pain to many will,
in time, prove it so wrong. But by that time, one hopes
it won’t be too late. |
