Group items tagged

The incidence of cardiovascular, respiratory and water-borne diseases is rising in Uruguay in tandem with climate change, while dengue fever and malaria lurk at the country's borders. Higher temperatures are encouraging the presence of insect vectors carrying diseases that were eradicated decades ago, experts say.Increasingly frequent spells of extreme weather particularly affect the health of the poorest, who live in overcrowded conditions in precarious dwellings lacking sanitation, in the shantytowns that have sprung up at an exponential rate since the 1990s in the Montevideo metropolitan area. Many of them are on low-lying land exposed to flooding. Diarrhoea, hepatitis A and leptospirosis are some of the most common illnesses resulting from flooding and inadequate disposal of human waste, the head of the Health Ministry's Environmental and Occupational Health Division, Carmen Ciganda, told IPS. "These diseases are not exactly caused by climate change, but they are associated with it and become more prevalent when there are floods or droughts," she said. At the Pereira Rossell Hospital, the country's main children's hospital, respiratory diseases climbed from 17.7 percent in 2003 to 23.3 percent in 2007, and leptospirosis cases increased from 64 in 2006 to 106 in 2007. But Ciganda warned of threats that so far have been kept at bay beyond the country's borders. "If our climate becomes more tropical, conditions will be more favourable for the vectors that transmit diseases like dengue, yellow fever and malaria," she said. The average yearly temperature in Uruguay has risen by 0.8 degrees Celsius in the last 100 years, and spring and summer average temperatures are now higher than they were in the early 20th century, while rainfall has become heavier and more frequent in the last 50 years.

"Since 2007, the mosquito has been detected in the capital city. Longer summers, and the delayed onset of cold weather (in the southern hemisphere winter) until late May, mean that the mosquitoes do not go into hibernation and continue to reproduce for a longer time," the coordinator of the Departmental Emergency Committee in Montevideo, Daniel Soria, told IPS. He said frequent heavy rainfall, a result of climate variability, hampers the struggle to prevent dengue and other diseases entering the country. "When 50 or 60 millimetres of rainwater falls in less than half an hour, it overwhelms the sewer system in Montevideo, and people in the shanty towns suffer most," he said. "Flooding of the Miguelete, Pantanoso and Carrasco rivers, which flow across the city, causes a lot of erosion, so people are constantly having to be evacuated." In Uruguay, nearly 60,000 people were evacuated between 1997 and 2008, and over half a million were affected in various ways from floods following a 30 percent increase in rainfall. The trend is expected to worsen in future, according to official reports.

Most people in Cambodia depend on farming for their livelihoods. 84 percent live in rural areas. Many live in high risk areas from flooding, droughts and cyclones. Kim Rattana of Caritas Cambodia said, "One of the biggest challenges we are facing in our development work is the increasing occurrence of natural disaster. What we have achieved over many years is being destroyed by storms and washed away by floods." Last year, Typhoon Ketsana destroyed hundreds of homes in Cambodia. Caritas Cambodia had to provide 30,000 people with relief items and food. Low water levels in the Mekong this year, the lifeline that runs through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, are threatening the livelihoods of more than 60 million people who live along it. In Cambodia, drought has already destroyed harvests and made fishing very difficult.

People in Cambodia don’t have the resources to adapt. That means they are extremely vulnerable to extreme or unpredictable weather. Climate variability has also brought health risks for some of Cambodia's most vulnerable communities. People are vulnerable to diseases like dengue fever, typhoid and diarrhea. Cambodia’s Ministry of Health predicts that under changing climate conditions will increase incidence of malaria by as much as 16 percent. Poor infrastructures and high poverty rates make malaria treatment unaffordable for large segments of the population. Only 55% of the population has access to public health facilities.

In 1970-2008, disasters caused by climate change (storms, floods, droughts, forest fires, extreme temperatures, and health) cost LAC countries US$81.4 billion a year.

Killer heat hits Korea, little relief this month

The temperature in South Jeolla hit highs of 34 degrees Celsius (93 degrees Fahrenheit) at the start of the month.

“We are considering announcing the number of heat fatalities on a weekly basis,” said an official at the Health Ministry, “to inform the public of the danger outside.”According to ministry records, 24 people rushed to emergency rooms on Aug. 2 and 3 had no other health problems. Another 16 who went to the hospital had conditions that were made worse by the heat.

According to a recent press release from AlphaGalileo, a resource for European research news, a study lead by researchers from the Madrid Carlos III Institute of Health shows cholera cases in Zambia are increasing as temperatures rise. Their study results confirm that an increase in environmental temperature six weeks before the rainy season also increases the number of people affected by cholera at a rate of 4.9%. “This is the first time that it has become evident in the sub-Saharan region that the increase in environmental temperature is related to the increase in cholera cases,” says Miguel Ángel Luque, one of the study’s authors, in the press release. The research project, which was done in Zambia between 2003 and 2006, analyzes data from three cholera epidemics. The results show that climatic variables, such as rain and environmental temperature, are related to the increase in cholera cases during the epidemic period. Experts affirm that cholera has a seasonal component associated with the rain season. An increase in temperature six weeks before this period is related with a 4.9% increase in the number of cases of this sickness within the population. The study also showed that  a 1º C increase in temperature six weeks before the beginning of the outbreak explains the 5.2% increase in cholera cases during an epidemic.

According to a recent press release from AlphaGalileo, a resource for European research news, a study lead by researchers from the Madrid Carlos III Institute of Health shows cholera cases in Zambia are increasing as temperatures rise. Their study results confirm that an increase in environmental temperature six weeks before the rainy season also increases the number of people affected by cholera at a rate of 4.9%.

Venezuelan Health Minister, Eugenia Sader stated that the dengue epidemic covers almost half the world and the spike in the disease is owing to climate change. Speaking on State VTV channel, the Minister confirmed a 88% increase of dengue in the Americas. In Venezuela, she admitted, the increase in dengue cases is 69% as of May but Venezuela has the lowest death rate from the disease in the region, standing at 0.7%. The population has an important role to play in eliminating the threat of dengue transmitted by the the white-legged mosquito. People, she urged, must eliminate stagnant pools of water left in tins or in old tires and start using mosquito nets.

Sader said the effect of climate on spreading the disease is clear in Venezuela because Andean States have started reporting cases of dengue for the first time.

With the observance of the Dengue Awareness Month in June, the Department of Health reported increase in dengue cases in the region due to climate change. DOH Entomologist Ursula Segundo said that the DOH has recorded a 90 percent increase in the cases of dengue in the Cordillera region compared to the same period last year.

Segundo said that the increase in dengue cases is due to the climate change.

For the first time in more than 65 years, dengue has returned the continental United States, according to an advisory the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued in late May.

The upsurge is not unexpected. Experts say more than half the world's population will be at risk by 2085 because of greater urbanization, global travel and climate change.

The risk is set to increase. A report in the medical journal Lancet, which looked at the impact of climate change on the global distribution of dengue fever, found that nearly 5 billion to 6 billion people will be living in land suitable for transmission by 2085.

Over the last few days the temperature in Taiwan has shot up and the media has been awash with articles of how people can avoid the worst of the heat wave. The papers have also been full of stories about the number of heat-related deaths. Questions have been raised as to the potential health risks posed by the scorching heat, when in fact the best way to deal with this problem, and to reduce the health risks posed by climate change, is to establish some form of early warning mechanism.

Over the last century Taiwan’s average temperature has increased by between 1.1 and 1.4 percent, twice the global average. The temperature of the surrounding oceans has risen at a higher rate, having a considerable impact on the fishing ecology.

(Reuters)

The report links warmer temperatures to the spread of dengue fever, yellow fever, malaria and even human plague in Europe."Fundamental influences of climate change on infectious disease can already be discerned and it is likely that new vectors and pathogens will emerge and become established in Europe within the next few years," says the report by the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC).

The independent group is formed of 26 national science academies from across the European Union.

Add this one to the year’s lengthening list of natural disasters — a bumper crop of poison ivy. It’s flourishing this summer, which, The Wall Street Journal says, “is shaping up to be one of its most virulent and unpredictable seasons.”

Long term, it seems that poison ivy responds positively to global warming, especially the increase in carbon dioxide, which produces bigger and more irritating plants.

David Thoreson has sailed to the ends of the Earth and now carries a message, as if gathered from sea winds.The 50-year-old Iowan and the crew of the 64-foot cutter Ocean Watch finished an epic 382-day journey of 27,524 nautical miles around the Americas on June 17, ending on the very dock they started last May in Seattle.

On his first attempt to sail through the Northwest Passage in 1994, he was stopped cold by ice; his second trip in 2007 was a rare success. This time, Ocean Watch was among a circus of boats ripping through, the ice a victim of a warming climate, he said."A sure sign that change is afoot was seeing standard-production sailboats with families going through the Northwest Passage."

The eastern U.S. cooked for another day Wednesday as unrelenting heat again sent thermometers past 100 degrees in urban "heat islands," buckled roads, slowed trains and pushed utilities toward the limit of the electrical grid's capacity.

Records fall again in East as heat swelters on

Philadelphia hit 100 degrees for second straight day, breaking a record of 98 degrees set in 1999. Baltimore hit 100 for the third straight day and Newark, N.J., hit triple digits for the fourth straight day. New York's Central Park was at 99 degrees at 2 p.m.

The study, which looked at the number of very hot days in 53 U.S. metro area between 1956 and 2005, says the number of very hot days is on the rise globally, but the rate of increase is more than double in the most sprawling regions compared with more compact cities. This was true regardless of the urban regions’ climate zone, population size or rate of growth. The annual number of very hot days increased by 14.8 days on average in the regions with the most sprawl and by 5.6 days in the least sprawling cities, according to the study.

Between 1992 and 2001, the rate of deforestation in the most sprawling regions was more than double that of compact regions, the study noted. Other studies have shown that the loss of vegetative cover is one of the main reasons that cities become much hotter than surrounding areas.

This study evaluated the association between temperature variation and emergency admissions for stroke in Brisbane, Australia, over a 10-year period. For people under age 65, the risk of primary intracerebral hemorrhage in summer rose significantly-15% and 12%, respectively-for 1°C (1.8°F) increases in daily high and low temperature, after controlling for potential confounding effects of humidity and air pollutants.

The coastal fog along the Californian coast has declined by a third over the past 100 years – the equivalent of three hours cover a day, new research shows. And it is not just bad for scenery, the reduction in the cooling effect of the fog could damage the health of the huge Redwood Forests nearby.

"Since 1901, the average number of hours of fog along the coast in summer has dropped from 56 per cent to 42 per cent, which is a loss of about three hours per day," said the study leader Dr James Johnstone at the University of California. He said that it was unclear whether this is part of a natural cycle of the result of human activity, but the fog is receding because of a reduction in the difference between the temperature of the sea and the land. "A cool coast and warm interior is one of the defining characteristics of California's coastal climate, but the temperature difference between the coast and interior has declined substantially in the last century, in step with the decline in summer fog," he added.

Professor Todd Dawson, co-author, said the decline could be disastrous for the nearby ecosystems.

The GCC region is undergoing a heat wave that is hospitalising labourers, breaking down electricity substations and pushing power stations to the limit, experts and officials from across the region say. ¡°It¡¯s a heat wave, it¡¯s unexpected, we are having extreme temperatures for this time of year,¡± said Essa Ramadan, the senior meteorologist at the Kuwait Meteorological Department. In Kuwait, ¡°it¡¯s seven to eight degrees [Celsius] above average¡±.

The highest temperature ever recorded at Kuwait International Airport since it started taking measurements in 1957 was 51.3¢ªC in August 1998. Even though June is usually a cooler month, that temperature was matched this week. Weather stations in other areas of the country recorded temperatures as high as 54¢ªC.

Mr Ramadan blames the high temperatures on global warming, which he said is changing the Earth¡¯s weather systems and has led to an average annual rise of between 0.5¢ªC and 0.8¢ªC in Kuwait over the last 53 years. He said Kuwait, the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia, the south of Iraq and west Iran are being hit the hardest.