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Public Health Perspective

Innocent victim of climate change

Dr Iqbal Kabir
Today health-driven environmental concerns are most keenly felt among urban dwellers in low-income countries like Bangladesh although it has emerged as a great threat forthem. Urban populations in developing countries are both vulnerable to health hazards from* climate changes and are increasingly contributors to the problem.
The most recent completed report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) revealed that populations of low- and middle-income countries have a much lower impact on the global environment. Emissions of the greenhouse gases (GHGs), which cause climate change are currently determined mainly by consumption patterns in cities of the developed world.
These trends have two major implications for public health. First, they require a reconsideration of policies to protect health from climate-related threats in cities of the developing world. Secondly, there is likely to be an increasing attention paid to policies that can reduce GHG emissions, many of which also have major direct health consequences.
Specific health vulnerabilities imposed by the climate change, in other words by the developed world, range from heat waves and air-pollution impacts to sealevel rise and storms in coastal areas and to emerging infectious diseases.
Heatwaves
Heat waves can cause dramatic impacts on urban health. Global trends toward higher and increasingly variable temperatures are expected to further increase the frequency of heat waves. This summer, we have experienced it in many cities of Bangladesh.
Floods and storms
The construction patterns in many developing cities (like Dhaka, Chittagong) have resulted in a combination of degradation of natural protection e.g. through deforestation and building on floodplains, poor-quality construction of housing on exposed slopes, and extensive ground coverage of concrete without adequate drainage. Heavy rains therefore often result in intense, and sometimes lethal, flash floods.
Two bouts of flood and cyclone SIDR last year overburdened us with many physical and psychosocial problems.
Communicable diseases
Many water- and vector-borne infectious diseases are strongly influenced by climate conditions. Dengue transmission has increased dramatically in tropical developing countries including Bangladesh in the recent years due to the weakening of vertical control programmes, coupled with rapid unplanned urbanisation, producing breeding sites for Aedes mosquitoes and high human population densities supplying a large pool of susceptible individuals.
Incidence of Malaria and other diarrhoeal diseases are also increased significantly.
Air pollution
Ozone layer is affected by atmospheric conditions and tend to be higher on warmer days. The most obvious is urban ambient air pollution. Studies showed that the increased intensity of air pollution of Dhaka city makes people more vulnerable to health hazards.
Innocent victim
We are the innocent victims of the activity done by the developed part of the world causing climate change.
We have contributed least to the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions but facing the greatest risks. It is also highly inequitable and very hard to accept. The economic development and the concurrent urbanisation of poorer countries like us mean that we will be vulnerable to health hazards from climate change and simultaneously, an increasing contributor to the existing public health problems.
So it is the high time to actlocally for this global public health issue. We must have to conserve our environment for the health-safety of our future generation. Simultaneously we should raise our voice globally for the compensation from the developed world to minimise the public health, conse-quencesofclimatechange. The writer is a Public Health Specialist and Eplde mi -otogist. He wo'Vs as a Technical Officer at World Health Organ, jatkxi. Bangladesh Country Office The opinion of ths article is personal and may not be