Climate change exacerbated weather variability has a wide variety of impacts, including global disease-patterns. In turn this can destabilise societies leading to political instability.
“Three years ago, Pamela Akinyi Aroko, 40, who chairs her local early-warning committee, watched death come to her village, Kosano. It started with an elderly man, then two children died of acute diarrhoeal sickness. She knew the problem lay with contaminated drinking water in the floods that followed heavy rainfall.”
The geographic and seasonal spread of diseases is also determined by temperature, rainfall and humidity factors. Water-borne diseases can be caused by contaminated water sources and changes in rainfall patterns affect mosquito breeding thus increasing dengue spread. The spread of mosquitoes carrying the dengue virus has expanded in Honduras and this case exemplifies the impact of a flawed government, criminality rates and public apathy on its response.
Basic health is the premise for human security, which also jeopardises socio-economic and political conditions. When individuals fall ill, productivity decreases. This is especially the case when household heads suffer from disease. Other family members will have to find other sources of income and simultaneously take care of sick individuals. This way, livelihood circumstances deteriorate, families becomes under greater stress and the local economy is impacted negatively.
Fear and anxiety regarding a disease can impact political system and increase discontent of the population at community level, too. A qualitative study from Brazil on the societal impact of dengue outbreaks indicates the political impact. A decrease in government legitimacy led to community disengagement and leaders of municipal governments feared political breakdown.
One way to address the root cause of climate change exacerbated weather variability on global disease patterns, is by improving the resilience of water resources to extreme weather events. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) incorporated climate and health programming in their Health Risk Management Project. Together with the Kenyan Red Cross, a Community-led Total Sanitation (CLTS) training has been performed to prevent the spread of water-borne diseases. 260 volunteers received training on climate impacts on health, on early warning systems and on practices to reduce exposure to disaster. Subsequently, 60.000 individuals were informed.
“Early-warning committees received severe-weather warnings several days before floods and organized the maintenance of drainage channels, repair of latrines, storage of food and water, and the gathering of supplies for boiling water. Now life goes on as usual; women go to the farm; men cycle to work; children play.”
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