By Anna Boyd
    eFluxMedia

    Monday 07 April 2008

    This year's World Health Day (April 7) highlights the idea that global warming carries more health risks now than ever and the situation is getting worse, as weather experts forecast raised temperature for the years to come.

    The World Health Organization has already warned that heavy rains and warmer temperatures facilitate the spread of germs such as bacteria and viruses.

    "The health impacts of climate change are already evident in different ways: more people are dying from excessive heat than before, changes are occurring in the incidence of vector-borne diseases, and the pattern of natural disasters is altering," says the WHO.

    At least 150,000 more people are dying each year of malaria, diarrhea, malnutrition and floods, all of which can be traced to climate change, according to Shigery Omi, the head of the WHO's Western Pacific office. More than half of those deaths register in Asia, Omi said, according to Reuters.

    "Malaria-carrying mosquitos are now found in areas where there was no malaria before. For dengue, there are many other factors responsible for the rise of the mosquitos. But I am sure that climate change is certainly playing one of the many roles, that much we can say," Omi said.

    It is already a fact that global warming is happening because the earth's atmosphere is becoming overloaded with human-created "greenhouse gases," carbon dioxide and methane. "Scientists have established that the changes in global climate being experienced by the world today are, in all likelihood, due to over a century of indiscriminate pumping of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by developed countries in their pursuit of economic development," says Dr Chukwumerije Okereke, a senior researcher from the University of East Anglia's Centre for Climate Change Research.

    According to WHO Director- General Dr. Margaret Chan, continuing change will affect some of the most fundamental determinants of health: food, air and water. Also, malnutrition, lack of access to basic sanitation including access to safe drinking water, and pollution are known factors to aggravate the risk to respiratory disease including TB.

    Only "through increased collaboration, the global community will be better prepared to cope with climate-related health challenges worldwide," WHO warns on World Health Day. It is a day to mark and remind us all to contribute in developing an improved strategy for an early solution to this global warming and the risk associated to human health due to its effects.

    "The dialogue on global warming and related health challenges aims to better prepare countries to strengthen surveillance and control of infectious diseases, as well as to ensure safer use of diminishing water supplies and promote better coordination in emergencies," says the WHO.