Relationship Between Climate Change and Disease: An United, Holistic and One Health Approach Needed

Context

The latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns the world about the close relationship between climate change and disease, which states that climate change heightens the global risk of infectious diseases.

Relationship Between Climate Change and Disease

• Habitat Loss: It forces disease-carrying animals to encroach upon human territory, increasing the risk of human-animal interaction and the transfer of pathogens from wildlife to humans. 
• Frequency: Over half of all-known infectious diseases threatening humans worsen with changing climate patterns. 
• Transmission of Diseases: 
  • Routes: It includes environmental sources, medical tourism and contaminated food and water. 
  • Factors: Variability in temperature, precipitation and humidity disrupt disease transmission cycles. Heat has been proven to interfere with the genomic structure of pathogens, changing their infectivity and virulence.
• Interconnection between Ecosystem & Climate Change: While ecosystems shape local climates, climate change is transforming ecosystems. 
  • This dynamic introduces invasive species and extends the range of existing life forms. 
• ‘Disease X’ and Beyond: It is the familiar annual cycles of known agents such as influenza, measles, Japanese encephalitis, dengue, diarrhoea among others that will continue to test the public health system. 

Climate Change and Disease: Challenges of the Hour

• Not adequate Real-time Tracking: The programme, which would have enabled real-time tracking of emerging disease outbreaks, has not delivered on expectations.
• Lacking on Surveillance: The current design of surveillance is not adequate for the emerging disease scenario. 
• Multi-pronged Impacts: Climate change is not just limited to infectious diseases but also exacerbates injuries and deaths from extreme weather events, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, and mental health issues. 
  • For example: The re-emergence of Nipah in Kerala is a wake-up call, that mere biomedical response to diseases is inadequate. 

Climate Change and Disease: Scenario in India

• Experiencing Impacts: India has already faced adverse impacts, with early summers and erratic monsoons causing water scarcity across the Gangetic plains and Kerala. 
• Observed Cases: These climatic shifts are manifesting in severe health crises, including a dengue epidemic in Kolkata (and in Dhaka, Bangladesh) and the Nipah outbreak in Kerala. 
• Steps Taken: Over the past two decades, India has improved its reporting of outbreaks. 
  • The Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP): It was rolled out in a few States in 2007. 
  • Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP): It is a new, web-enabled, near-real-time electronic information system that was launched in seven States in 2018 to present disaggregated data to its users. 
• Need to Focus: 
  • Synergy: India must launch One Health and infectious disease control programmes by building greater synergies between the Centre and States and their varied specialised agencies. 
  • Robust Surveillance Systems: Animal husbandry, forest and wildlife, municipal corporations, and public health departments need to converge and set up robust surveillance systems. 
  • Responsible Coordination: Above mentioned institutions need to build trust and confidence, share data, and devise logical lines of responsibility and work with a coordinating agency. 
    • So far, the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister has been taking this lead but with new World Bank and other large funding in place, this will need greater coordination and management.

The Path Ahead

• Need Adequate Strategies: Changed disease scenarios require a revision of strategies to detect and deal with them. 
• Time to Mitigate: Mitigating the spread of climate change-induced diseases requires safeguarding ecosystems, curbing greenhouse gas emissions, and implementing active pathogen surveillance. 
• Need of a Unified Approach: A unified approach, termed One Health which integrates monitoring human, animal, plant, and environmental health is the must of the hour. 
  • This approach is pivotal in preventing outbreaks, especially those originating from animals. 
  • It encompasses zoonotic diseases, neglected tropical diseases, vector-borne diseases, antimicrobial resistance, and environmental contamination.

Conclusion

Protecting ecosystems, fostering collaboration, and embracing the One Health paradigm could be the best defences in the face of a changing climate and the growing threat of infectious diseases. There is a need to take concerted efforts, not just to adapt but also to proactively safeguard our planet and its inhabitants.