Unhealthy outcome for many
January 23, 2017
The potential withdrawal of the US from the Paris climate agreement has broad implications for society and the environment. While much attention has concentrated upon melting glaciers, rising sea levels and conflicts over scarce resources, another area represents a major cause for concern: human health.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global climate change has direct health impacts tied to changes in the frequency of extreme weather. Additionally, increasing temperatures alter ecosystem dynamics, making it easier for mosquitoes and other organisms to come into contact with human populations and spread disease (Smith et al 2014).
Climate change also undermines improvements in the management of disease outbreaks. This is the case in South Africa, where I have conducted extensive research over the past decade.
As I detail in my book States of Disease, the South African government has become more aggressive in responding to the HIV/Aids epidemic while establishing itself as a leader in the testing and treatment of HIV-positive individuals.
South Africa’s HIV approach holds important lessons for the future of HIV management, but it also reveals new challenges that will arise from global climate change. One such challenge is ensuring that HIV-positive individuals have food.
While the availability of drugs to treat HIV/Aids reflects encouraging developments in the global response to the epidemic, presenting HIV as a chronic condition has limitations. In particular, a major concern for people in this part of the world is less a shortage of antiretroviral drugs than a shortage of food.
My work in South Africa shows that managing HIV encounters a variety of social and environmental challenges. Educational messages provided by clinics and hospitals emphasise the need to access certain foods to maintain good health, not all of which are readily available to needy populations.
