THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE

The Impact Of Climate Change On Infectious Diseases In The Middle East

The Impact Of Climate Change On Infectious Diseases In The Middle East

Introduction

Global climate changes are large-scale changes that are occurring systemically or ubiquitously to the world's natural environment as a result of human action. They are an increasingly important addition to the spectrum of environmental hazards to human health. Only in recent decades has the size and intensity of the human enterprise become sufficiently great to begin to change, and disrupt, the natural environment on this global scale. This reflects the combined impact of unprecedented population size, intensity of economic activity, and the prevailing types of technology. In other words, the aggregate environmental impact of humankind is so great that it is beginning to alter the earth system on a planetary scale thus it is also contributing to various infectious diseases. This paper discusses the impact of climate change on infectious diseases in Asia especially in the Middle East.

Discussion

We live in a world that is undergoing widespread and rapid globalization—the extension and intensification of various social, economic, cultural, technological, and political interconnections among human societies around the globe. Economic globalization, characterized by the increasingly integrated and “liberalized” (deregulated) worldwide systems of markets, capital flows, and trading, has adversely affected the natural global environment. However, globalization and global environmental change, which are strongly associated at present, need not always be closely connected. We could imagine a future in which there is yet greater globalization, though managed in an environmentally sustainable manner. (Wray 2010, 32-46)

The best known of the global environmental hazards to health are those resulting from two major changes to the atmosphere:

Depletion of stratospheric ozone by various anthropogenic gases, primarily halocarbons: The resultant increased flux of solar ultraviolet radiation (UVR)—and the biological hazards that it poses to humans—are generally well understood. Although this depletion continues at present, if the necessary remedy is implemented, the stratospheric ozone layer should begin to recover over the next decade.

Amplification of the natural greenhouse effect, by anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases: This process, which has increased the heat-trapping capacity of the lower atmosphere, appears to have contributed to recent world climate change. Climate scientists believe that this human-induced climate change will continue for many decades, even if we soon take effective international action to substantially curtail greenhouse gas emissions.

Although global climate change has attracted much recent attention from scientists and policymakers, other categories of global environmental change pose similarly serious risks to current and future human societies. These categories include:

Land degradation;

Global dissemination of persistent organic pollutants;

Disruption of other major elemental cycles, such as those of nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, and carbon;

Depletion of freshwater supplies; and

Biodiversity losses, often with resultant disturbances of ecosystems.

The public health significance of these global environmental changes is that the health of populations is increasingly being influenced by changes that originate beyond the boundaries of a given population's immediate living space. In addition, major—perhaps irreversible—changes to the biosphere's life-support system, such as those due ...