Malaria Consortium outlines nine key approaches to help mitigate climate-related threats to health

Malaria Consortium is pleased to announce the publication of an opinion paper exploring the impact climate change could have on global health.

This paper, Adapting to minimise the health impacts of climatic change, outlines some of the anticipated threats to the incidence, transmission and distribution of infectious diseases and how responses to climate-related risk can be incorporated into programmes.

Rising global temperatures damage ecosystems, endanger coastal areas and increase the risk of extreme weather, affecting many of the social and environmental determinants of health. Changes in climatic conditions can also alter the incidence, transmission and distribution of infectious diseases.

It is estimated that climate change — long-term changes in the earth’s average weather patterns that are primarily caused by human activities — will cause 250,000 additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2050.

While everyone will be affected, some populations are more at risk than others. Those living in countries with lower socio-economic development and weaker health infrastructures are likely to be most vulnerable to the negative impact of climate change.

As a leading technical organisation specialising in the prevention, control and treatment of malaria and other communicable diseases, Malaria Consortium recognises that climate change has the potential to affect health and disease outcomes for people across the countries in which they work.

Just one of the approaches Malaria Consortium is incorporating into their programmes to help mitigate climate-related risks is improving the surveillance and monitoring of malaria incidence by strengthening national and sub-national systems to better track disease transmission and respond to the impacts of climatic changes.  

Read all nine overarching approaches and the rest of the paper here.

This paper is the third in Malaria Consortium’s ‘Future Health’ series, in which the organisation is using its expertise and experience of running health intervention programmes around the world to share its opinions on some of the biggest threats and developments in global health. Papers on antimicrobial resistance and vaccines have already been published and papers on dengue and digital health will come later this year.

To read Adapting to minimise the health impacts of climatic change, click here

Access all of Malaria Consortium’s Future Health content here

Keywords: Climate change