{"id":9079,"date":"2019-09-02T17:13:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-02T21:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/plataformalac.org\/?p=9079"},"modified":"2019-09-02T17:13:05","modified_gmt":"2019-09-02T21:13:05","slug":"climate-change-diseases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/2019\/09\/climate-change-diseases\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate change diseases"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Even though there is not much awareness of the impacts of global warming on health yet, this phenomenon exacerbates the conditions of some diseases, such as dengue fever, asthma and malaria. Latin America is not safe from this problem.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Source: laprensa.com.ar<\/a>. By Sebasti\u00e1n Muzi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twelve years. That\u2019s the time we have\nleft to avoid irreversible climate disruption, according to the latest report\nfrom the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Paris Agreement, which replaced the\nKyoto Protocol, was signed by 195 countries in 2015; however, no progress has\nbeen made yet to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which cause\nglobal warming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cClimate change is already here, and we\nhave to start working. Every region will suffer it in different ways: some will\nhave more hurricanes, others will have less precipitation and some others will\nhave more of it,\u201d<\/strong> Alejandro Miranda Vel\u00e1zquez,\nmanager of the Development Bank of Latin America, says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a discussion with Latin American\njournalists, including this media company, the economist said that 54% of the\nglobal population live in cities, and that these people will suffer the most,\nsince 70% of gas emissions are generated in metropolises. This is a very\nimportant fact when considering the diseases caused by a rise in temperature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAn increase of one degree in the last\ncentury has caused higher minimum and maximum temperatures every day, which\nendangers human health,\u201d<\/strong> says Matilde\nRusticucci, researcher of CONICET (National Scientific and Technical Research\nCouncil) and professor at Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Health Organization (WHO)\nstates that climate change has been responsible for 6% of global malaria cases,\nand almost half of the world population is exposed to this disease, with Africa\nat the top of the list with a devastating 90% of reported cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though data in Latin America are not as\nshocking as in Africa, there has been an increase in some areas of Venezuela, going\nfrom 136,000 cases in 2015 to 411,000 only two years later, as a result of the\nserious economic and social crisis in that country. Nicaragua is in the same\nsituation, with three times the number of cases in said period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EPIDEMICS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Brazil has recognized an\nincrease of malaria cases in 2017, this disease did not cause an epidemic.\nEpidemics were caused by outbreaks of dengue, zika and chikungunya fever two\nyears before, mainly in several endemic regions of the Amazon, and then spread\nto many regions of South America and the Caribbean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of it, this year the Brazilian\nMinistry of Health conducted a research study to assess the infestation level\nin the cities of that country. According to the study, around 1,000 cities have\nhigh outbreak risk, while 2,160 are in alert state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Aedes Aegypti mosquito (carrier of\nthe three diseases) is closely related to climate change, since it needs\nspecial temperature and humidity conditions: the warmer the weather, the faster\ntheir reproduction\u201d, explains An\u00edbal Carbajo, researcher of UBA Ecology,\nGenetics and Evolution Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Argentina, for instance, dengue\nfever had been eliminated in 1960, yet it reappeared in the last few decades, concurring\nwith higher temperatures. The highest point was recorded in 2016, when the\nepidemic level was reached with more than 70,000 patients, the worst record in\nthe country\u2019s history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zika fever created havoc in the land of\nsoccer, samba and carnival. In 2015, when the disease originated, zika bites in\npregnant women caused children to be born with microcephaly. At first, doctors\nwere confused because the symptoms were similar to those of dengue fever:\nfever, skin rash, painful joints and conjunctivitis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chikungunya fever has similar signs as\nwell. While the first outbreak was in Tanzania in 1952, it just appeared in our\nregion in 2006 due to cases imported from abroad, and the first victim was registered\nin the Caribbean island of San Martin (which belongs to France) in 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, cholera and yellow\nfever can develop at the same time with a heat wave or proper conditions for\nmosquito reproduction, though they do not have the same statistics as the\nprevious virus. Despite it all, both national and Pan-American entities have\nmade efforts to spread information about prevention measures\u2014particularly not\nleaving stagnant water for days\u2014or immunization of patients in the case of\nyellow fever, also called \u201cv\u00f3mito negro\u201d (black vomit).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ASTHMA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Australian scientist Paul Beggs has\nproven in a study that climate change has a direct impact on the incidence of\nallergens in the air, such as pollen or food (e.g., peanuts), on allergic\nasthma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beggs, professor at Macquarie\nUniversity, discovered that carbon dioxide and temperature directly affect\nplant metabolism through photosynthesis, while high CO2 <\/sub>concentrations\ncause those common legume plants to have heavier pods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2009, ten years ago, the experts who\ngathered at the XXI World Allergy Congress of Buenos Aires pointed out that\n\u201cchanges in distribution, quantity and quality of pollen (allergy triggers), as\nwell as environmental pollution, might be related to a higher asthma and\nallergy prevalence, and to worse symptoms in patients.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basque doctor Ignacio Ansotegui,\npresident of the World Allergy Organization (WAO), believes that \u201cclimate\nchange, along with an urban lifestyle, pollution and stress, are making\nallergic diseases become the worst noninfectious epidemics of this century.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nowadays, around 235 million people\nhave asthma, and the disease can be found in every single country, regardless\nof how developed each of them is, so Latin America is not safe from this\nproblem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The International Study of Asthma and\nAllergies in Childhood (ISAAC) is a global research project on prevalence and\nrisk factors related to asthma and allergic diseases in childhood. This study\n(which can be found at http:\/\/www.neumologia-pediatrica.cl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Consideraciones.pdf<\/a>) concludes that asthma is the most\nfrequent chronic respiratory disease in pediatrics, and it does not\ndiscriminate between rich or poor, nor between nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to this research, Peru has\nthe highest rate of children with asthma in the region with 27%, followed by\nCosta Rica (22%), Panama and Paraguay (17%), Brazil (16%) and Argentina (10%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ADAPTATION<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2015, The Lancet Countdown published\na report which states that anthropogenic climate change is \u201cthreatening more\nthan 50 years of progress in the field of public health,\u201d as it affects all sectors\nof society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, \u201cit challenges the countries\u2019\ninfrastructure,\u201d claims Antonella Risso, technical coordinator of Health Care Without\nHarm, since, when heat waves in unprepared places occur, power cuts (a common\nproblem when demand peaks are reached) may generate serious disorders on electricity-dependent people or make\nliving in buildings complicated due to lack of elevators and water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot taking action compromises health\nand global economy,\u201d Carolina Gil Posse adds. She also highlights that the\nexpenditure reduction that could be achieved by mitigating global warming is\n2.5 times higher than the investment required to achieve it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, adaptation becomes crucial\nto avoid, for instance, allergies due to bad air quality, malnutrition,\ndiarrhea and cholera caused by contaminated water, cardiovascular damage due to\nextreme heat or forced migration of entire families because of the degradation\nof their environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, how can humans adapt to a problem\nthey caused?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2015, WHO approved an action plan\nwith four key aspects: 1) partnerships with other UN organizations who have\nhealth and environment as topics on their agendas, 2) informing people about\nclimate threats and their risks, 3) coordinating reviews of scientific evidence\nand 4) helping vulnerable countries create response capacity and promote\nhealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In spite of that, it always seems\ninitiatives are not enough. This is a warning by the Secretary General the\nUnited Nations, Ant\u00f3nio Guterres. \u201cToday, I\u2019m asking for leadership from\npoliticians, scientists and businesspeople, as well as from people all over the\nworld. We have the tools to make our actions effective. What is missing, even\nafter the Paris Agreement, is the ambition to do whatever it takes. The most\nalarming aspect of climate change is that scientists have been warning us about\nit over and over again for decades, yet several leaders refused to listen. Just\na few have taken action with the necessary approach, and we are seeing the\nresults.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These results show that, out of the ten\nmost vulnerable countries to climate change worldwide, five are in\nAmerica\u2014Puerto Rico, Honduras, Haiti, Nicaragua and Dominica\u2014, though\nmicroclimates or diseases that affect each Latin American nation in particular\nwere not considered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTechnology is on our side waiting to\nbe used. Clean fuels, alternative construction materials or advances in agriculture\nhave a crucial role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We do not have more\ntime to lose, and it is not too late to change our path,\u201d urges Guterres,\nconsidering the upcoming United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,\nwhich will be held in Chile between December 2nd<\/sup> and 13th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even though there is not much awareness of the impacts of global warming on health yet, this phenomenon exacerbates the conditions of some diseases, such as dengue fever, asthma and malaria. Latin America is not safe from this problem. Source: laprensa.com.ar. By Sebasti\u00e1n Muzi. Twelve years. That\u2019s the time we have left to avoid irreversible […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[66,74],"tags":[],"anho":[],"autor":[],"publicado_por":[],"palabras_clave":[],"class_list":["post-9079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about-response-aids-tb-malaria","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9079"},{"taxonomy":"anho","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/anho?post=9079"},{"taxonomy":"autor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/autor?post=9079"},{"taxonomy":"publicado_por","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publicado_por?post=9079"},{"taxonomy":"palabras_clave","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/palabras_clave?post=9079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}