Act now: Tackle the country’s emerging climate change-induced health crisis
Much of north India has witnessed an intense heatwave in recent weeks, with several heatstroke-related deaths being reported. Monsoon rains could not have arrived any sooner. The effects of air pollution and climate change on human health are profound and increasingly palpable.
Environmental epidemiologists have highlighted associations between heat and heatstroke, kidney injury, malnutrition and anaemia. Air quality has been linked to lung disease, cardiovascular disease and neonatal mortality. Extreme rainfall has been associated with mosquito-borne and diarrhoeal illnesses.
More than four of every five Indians are exposed to extreme weather events. Other challenges include exposure to unsafe levels of air quality and vulnerability to zoonotic diseases. Given these challenges, we could be exposed to a silent pandemic, putting our society’s health at stake.
As health secretary of Rajasthan in 2020, I witnessed the first reported cases of covid among Italian tourists in Jaipur. To tackle this common challenge, we conducted daily meetings across traditionally siloed government verticals. Such a multi-stakeholder commitment is again the need of the hour.
As the central government and states form their climate action and One Health committees, the issues involved need to be addressed through inter-sectoral collaboration. We must begin with a thorough assessment of needs. Insights are crucial on which regions face the most pressing climate-related health burden.
This cannot be an annual exercise limited to the district level. Decision-makers need a real-time weather map for climate-related health vulnerability. A vulnerability index should take into account exposure levels, population sensitivity and adaptive capacity.
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