Climate change: A health challenge even as India struggles in pandemic

Even as India struggles to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, experts warn climate change may bring worse health challenges in its wake. A warmer climate may affect other diseases endemic to South Asia, including mosquito-borne diseases, such as chikungunya and dengue, parasitic diseases, such as leishmaniasis, lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis, and tick-borne diseases. As temperatures change, vector populations of mosquitoes, for instance, will be impacted. This, in turn, could lead to changes in transmission intensity or shifts in the geographical ranges where the diseases are found.
 

India, along with other countries, will have to expand surveillance activities to detect the shifting patterns of diseases, according to emerging research. “There are many efforts now to improve the data collection and its quality throughout the country," said Vikas Desai, technical director at the Urban Health and Climate Resilience Center for Excellence in Surat. “What’s required is the standardisation of data and the creation of a department or involvement of an organisation that views the health data, along with the climate data.”

 

Solutions will require stakeholders like governments, NGOs, and research institutes to bridge knowledge gaps. Efforts will have to be made to invest in infectious disease diagnostics, surveillance and improving access to essential medicines, research papers have shown.
 

The central issue is spending on health. Health-care costs are shared between the Centre and states, but state governments are responsible for the bulk of expenses. Ramping up spending would require states to spend 8 per cent of their Budget on health care, which would cover nearly 60 per cent of public health spending, Ravi Duggal, independent public health researcher and activist.