Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - African health ministers have called for a climate change strategy to tackle the rising medical costs associated with malaria and an increase in infant deaths as a result of other environmentally-inflicted diseases. The ministers met in Windhoek, the Namibian capital, where they expressed their worries over the high medical costs that most countries were currently facing as a result of climate change, leading to a rise in malaria cases. They said the cost of climate change was more severe than previously thought. The rising frequency of extreme climate events -- mainly flooding and landslides -- renders African countries vulnerable to increasing disease prevalence of and high death rates from infectious diseases that decrease economic productivity while exerting pressure on the already shaky health care systems.

The ministers said it was therefore essential for the formulation of clear response to the climate changes in order to protect human health and ensure that it is placed at the centre of the climate debate.

They spoke during the fifth session of the African Union Conference of Ministers of Health (CAMH5), which ended Friday under the theme “The impact of climate change on health and development in Africa.”

Namibian Prime Minister, Mr. Nahas Angula, told the ministers his country was currently working out a plan for cross-border cooperation with Angola in the control of malaria, one of the main killer diseases linked to climate change.

He said due to the current flooding in the north and north east of Namibia, the provision of key health care services were affected.

“Clinics are inaccessible, mobile outreach services cannot be conducted. Many people are displaced and have to be accommodated in make shift camps, routine primary health care and immunization services are interrupted, and the quality of water and sanitation is heavily compromised,” Angula told the ministers.

Angula urged the ministers to ensure that Africa’s health systems were based on a comprehensive primary health care approach that supports and strengthens community capacities to better manage their health.

He noted that “no one nation can meet the challenges posed by climate changes alone” and called for a collective resolve to address this global challenge.

Climate change has a direct impact on five aspects of the human environment – ecosystems, water security, weather changes and extremes, air quality and oceans and coasts - that in turn impact on additional environmental factors.

In her opening address, the AU Commissioner for Social Affairs Bience Gawanas, said more than one-third of diseases in children under the age of five years were caused by environmental exposures.

The top killers of children under five are acute respiratory infections (from indoor air pollution), diarrheal diseases (mostly from poor water, sanitation and hygiene), and malaria (from inadequate environmental management and vector control).”

The Commissioner therefore underscored the need to formulate a clear response to changes in the climate.

This is important in the light of the fact that Africa as a continent is under pressure from climate stresses and is highly vulnerable to the impact of climate change.

Pana 24/04/2011