Reducing the impact of climate change.

News Reducing the impact of climate change The most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that there is overwhelming evidence that humans are affecting climate and it highlighted the implications for human health. The World Health Organization (WHO) is helping countries respond to this challenge, primarily by encouraging them to build and reinforce public health systems as the first line of defence against climate-related health risks. When the heatwaves came, there were thousands of additional deaths in countries with some of the best health systems in the world. The photo " Camel boy " by Boniface Mwangi won third prize in the WHO photo and video contest Images of Health and Disability 2007 Special Theme: Health and Environment. A child eats as he waits for his parents to water the family herd of camels at a watering point in Al-Akaburu, Garish district in Kenya. During water scarcity many nomad families are forced to share their water with their livestock. Many deaths from dysentery and diarrhoea are caused by drinking contaminated water. There is mounting scientific evidence that climate change threatens the health of millions of people, but many governments are only just starting to act. WHO's new strategy is to provide them with evidence and advise them on the best course of protective action. For WHO, the shift to working in this way has been rapid: 12 months ago, save for a few workshops in developing countries, its environment-related activities were mainly based on publishing. But this refocusing of priorities echoes a change of opinion among Member States that can be traced in part to the severe heatwaves that engulfed Europe in 2003. " When the heatwaves came, there were thousands of additional deaths in countries with some of the best health systems in the world, " recalls Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, a senior scientist in the department of Public Health and Environment at WHO. " It was a dramatic reminder that we are vulnerable and we need to think about how to manage these risks. " This shocking experience spurred Europe to take action. But outside Eu-rope, making the link between climate and health has been harder because of the difficulty of demonstrating that climate is responsible for specific health risks and of describing the wide range of possible outcomes. Often-cited consequences of changing temperatures include droughts, floods, alterations in the burden of vector-borne and water-related …