Climate Change and Health

The health impact in terms of the rise in Emerging Infectious diseases (EIDs) should be prioritized on the United Nations Agenda, with particular focus on risk hotspots, i.e. Africa, Latin America and Asia as pointed out the course literature for chapter 2. The reasons:

• Climate change phenomena such as El Nino, erratic rainfall, floods, temperature variations all have direct or indirect links to the emergence of new strains of infectious diseases.
• Early detection or forecast on new EIDs can prevent future pandemics through mitigation and adaptation policy responses.
• Globalization in the form of modern day transport links make it much quicker for new infectious diseases to spread.
• The need for further research and investigation at the global level can be best coordinated at the UN level by bringing in the needed evidence to influence policies at regional and national level for adaptation and mitigation.

By prioritizing EIDs at the UN level through more investments in R&D, policy recommendations can also be linked to improvements in health systems, urbanization schemes, food systems/distributions as well as energy generation systems that can help promote healthy living environment.