Syllabus
Issues Relating to Development and Management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources (GS2)
Source
The Hindu,27/09/2023
Context
In the latest report of IPCC,there is a stark warning i.e.Climate Change heightens the global risk of infectious diseases.
Content
- Over half of all known infectious diseases threatening humans worsen with changing climate patterns.
- Diseases often find new transmission routes, including environmental sources, medical tourism, and contaminated food and water from once reliable sources.
- While ecosystems shape local climates, climate change is transforming ecosystems.
- This dynamic introduces invasive species and extends the range of existing life forms.
- The climatic shifts in India are manifesting in severe health crises, including a dengue epidemic in Kolkata and the Nipah outbreak in Kerala.
- The current design of surveillance is not adequate for the emerging disease scenario.
Factors affecting Infectious Disease Distribution
- Meteorological factors: These factors like temperature, humidity, and rainfall patterns influence transmission intensity of infectious diseases.
- Social and demographic factors:Factors such as population growth, urbanization, immigration, changes in land use and agricultural practices, deforestation, international travel, and breakdown in public health services have been mainly responsible for the recent resurgence of infectious diseases.
How Climate Change Causes Infectious Diseases?
- Reproduction:Mild winters, early springs, and warmer temperatures are giving mosquitoes and ticks more time to reproduce, spread diseases, and expand their habitats.
- Human -Animal Interaction:Habitat loss due to climate change 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.
- Spread of Fungus:Rising temperatures have allowed certain disease-causing fungi to spread into new areas that previously were too cold for them to survive.
- Water-borne diseases:A warmer climate could cause water-borne diseases to become more frequent, including cholera and diarrhoeal diseases such as giardiasis,salmonellosis, and cryptosporidiosis.
- Disruption of Transmission Cycles:Variability in temperature, precipitation, and humidity disrupt disease transmission cycles and alter the distribution of the vectors and animal reservoirs that host the parasite.
How is climate change increasing the risk of infectious diseases?
- Unpredictable Patterns:Climate Change heightens the global risk of infectious diseases.For instance,The periodicity of mosquito borne disease outbreaks no longer follows expected patterns.
- High risk of infectious diseases:climate change may contribute to expanding risk areas for infectious diseases such as dengue and may increase the burden of diarrhoeal diseases.
- Emergence of new strains of Viruses:Heat has been proven to interfere with the genomic structure of pathogens, changing their infectivity and virulence.
- Increase in the geographic spread of vectors:More places will become suitable for vectors. Warmer temperatures can increase the geographic spread of where vectors like mosquitoes and ticks can survive and breed.
- Extend the disease transmission season:Warmer climates extend the disease transmission season.Climate change is improving the climatic and environmental conditions for the transmission of many diseases. This may also lead to an increase in the duration of disease transmission seasons.
- Change in the Behaviour of vectors:Temperature change can affect the behaviour of vectors. For example, increased temperatures change the biting behaviour of mosquitoes, reducing the effectiveness of barriers such as bed nets.
Govt initiatives to curb climate change
- National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC):The NAPCC identifies measures that promote development objectives while also yielding co-benefits for addressing climate change effectively.
- LiFE Initiative: Lifestyle for the Environment, is an India-led global mass movement which aims to empower individual and collective action to protect and preserve the environment.The LiFE movement aims to leverage the strength of social networks to create a global network of individuals called ‘Pro-Planet People’ (P3).
- Panchamrit’ promise at COP 26: Panchamrit’ or the five-point agenda to fight climate change.
| Panchamrit Increasing non-fossil fuel capacity by 500 GW by 2030. 50 percent of its energy requirements will come from renewable energy by 2030. Reduction of total projected carbon emissions by one billion tonnes from now to 2030. Reduction of the carbon intensity of the economy by 45 percent by 2030, over 2005 levels. Achieving the target of net zero emissions by 2070. |
Govt Initiatives to curb Infectious Diseases
- Centre for One Health Division:It is working in coordination with all stakeholders to promote health and quality of life by undertaking activities necessary for prevention and control of Zoonotic Diseases with the “One Health” approach.
- One Health Consortium:The aim of this consortium is to study the prevalence of ten selected zoonotic diseases and five trans-boundary animal diseases and analyze risks so as to provide forewarning to stakeholders.
- National One Health Mission : India is preparing for National One Health Mission.It includes Implementing integrated disease surveillance within and across human, animal, and environmental sectors to address communicable diseases of zoonotic, transboundary animal diseases and diseases of epidemic/pandemic potential.
Current design of surveillance
- The Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP):To strengthen/maintain decentralized laboratory based IT enabled disease surveillance system for epidemic prone diseases to monitor disease trends and to detect and respond to outbreaks in early rising phase through trained Rapid Response Team (RRTs)
- Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP):It is the next generation highly refined version of the presently used ‘Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme’ (IDSP).This is the world’s biggest online disease surveillance platform. India is the first country in the world to adopt such an Advanced Digital Surveillance System.
Way Forward
- Improve disease surveillance, including health education and community surveillance for early outbreak detection.
- Accelerate vaccine development with new technologies.
- Prioritize wetland management and elimination of vector breeding sites in the vicinity of populations.
- Investigate novel vector control methods (for example, the Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes)
- Launch One Health and infectious disease control programmes by building greater synergies between the Centre and States and their varied specialized agencies
Related topics
Disease X
- Disease X is a placeholder name that was adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO) in February 2018 on their shortlist of blueprint priority diseases to represent a hypothetical, unknown pathogen that could cause a future epidemic.
- It represents the knowledge that a serious international epidemic could be caused by a pathogen currently unknown to cause human disease.
- The WHO adopted the placeholder name to ensure that their planning was sufficiently flexible to adapt to an unknown pathogen (e.g., broader vaccines and manufacturing facilities).
- The concept of Disease X would encourage WHO projects to focus their research efforts on entire classes of viruses, instead of just individual strains , thus improving WHO capability to respond to unforeseen strains.
Case Studies(One Health)
- Several chimpanzees fell ill due to Monkeypox at the Sanaga Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center in Cameroon.
- Cameroon’s newly adopted One Health Strategy and Zoonotic Program, with One Health focal persons appointed to four ministries, was put into action shortly after the suspected cases were reported to the Ministry of Health.
- The cross-sectoral planning and response, which included literature reviews, on-site risk investigation, observations, sampling and laboratory diagnostics, as well as reporting to international agencies such as the World Animal Health Organisation (OIE) and the International Health Regulation of WHO, allowed for better knowledge sharing, faster response time, and decreased cost.
- Of the 72 chimpanzees in the sanctuary, the outbreak was limited to 6 cases of infection, with only one fatality and no spillover to human contacts.
- The use of a One Health approach in this case was estimated to provide a two third reduction in the total cost of the investigation and a response time that was much faster.
Epidemiologic Triangle
- A model used in infectious disease epidemiology (or the study of the causes and distribution of infectious diseases), referred to as the epidemiologic triangle.
- The 3 elements of the epidemiologic triangle are the agent or microbe causing the disease, the host or organism infected with the agent, and the environment that allows disease transmission.
Reference
- https://www.who.int/activities/prioritizing-diseases-for-research-and-development-in-emergency-contexts
- https://www.cdc.gov/ncezid/what-we-do/climate-change-and-infectious-diseases/index.html#:~:text=Milder%20winters%2C%20warmer%20summers%2C%20and,areas%20and%20infect%20more%20people.
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3978971/
- https://wellcome.org/news/how-climate-change-affects-vector-borne-diseases
Practice Question
While ecosystems shape local climates, climate change is transforming ecosystems. Discuss the interrelationship between climate change and ecosystem transformation. Support your answer with suitable examples.