Menu Menu
[gtranslate]

Future doctors to learn how global warming affects health

According to research, more than half of infectious diseases have been exacerbated by the various hazards associated with environmental breakdown, posing a significant threat to life on Earth. As a result, medical schools in Europe will give more training on illnesses linked to higher temperatures.

Polio has returned, monkeypox isn’t slowing down, and COVID-19 still lingers in the shadows – basically, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll have noticed that alongside the steady deterioration of our environment, the threat to human health has been growing.

But if you’ve seen Bill Gates’ famous Ted Talk from before any of us even understood the realities of a lockdown, you’ll know this was a possibility. As he warned, a global pandemic is one of the likeliest things to cause a massive social disturbance and, ultimately, end the world.

Well, according to research, this may be on the horizon, because 58% of infectious diseases (218 of the 375 we know of) have been exacerbated by the various hazards associated with climate change.

The exhaustive study, which was conducted by scientists at the University of Hawaii, discovered that outcomes of our ceaseless greenhouse gas emissions are both aggravating pathogens and weakening our immune systems.

The triggers are droughts, heatwaves, wildfires, extreme precipitation, and rising sea levels, to name just a few.

Analysing over 70,000 existing papers – some of it evidence stretching back 700 years before the advent of the man-made climate emergency – on the direct links between environmental breakdown and infectious diseases, they concluded that these events are bringing pathogens closer to people.

‘We became distressed by the overwhelming number of available case studies that already show how vulnerable we are becoming to our ongoing growing emissions of greenhouse gases,’ says the study’s co-author, Kira Webster.

‘If there are pathogens that cause us harm, climate change is trying to get to every single one of them. For me it’s shocking we don’t take this more seriously.’

In short, there are now more than 1,000 different pathways to worsen the spread of zika, malaria, and dengue (among others), a ‘cavalcade of risks too numerous for comprehensive societal adaptations.’

From warming and changed rainfall patterns expanding the range of vectors like mosquitoes, ticks, and fleas, to storms and flooding displacing people and relocating them in the heart of outbreaks, the situation is rather dire indeed.

Especially given the World Health Organisation has already cautioned that the climate crisis could undo the last 50 years of progress in development, global health, and poverty reduction.

It’s also estimated that an additional 250,000 people will die each year from 2030 to 2050 due to proliferating diseases, malnutrition and heat stress.

‘We are opening a Pandora’s Box of disease,’ says Camilo Mora, who led the research.

‘Because of climate change, we have all these triggers all over the world, over 1,000 of them. There are diseases out there just waiting to be unleashed. It’s like we are poking a stick at a lion – at some point the lion will come and bite us in the ass.’

Thankfully, alarm bells have been raised, and while it’s taken longer than it should have for experts to recognise the severity of this, strides to address the issue have been made (in Europe at least).

Led by the University of Glasgow, 25 medical schools from countries including the UK, Belgium, and France will integrate lessons on climate into their education of more than 10,000 students.

This means that mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue and malaria will become a bigger part of the curriculum and future doctors will have more training on how to spot and treat heatstroke.

They’ll also be expected to take the climate impact of treatments (such as inhalers for asthma) into account and will be taught to advocate for things such as active travel (walking or cycling rather than driving) and ‘green prescribing,’ where patients are encouraged to spent time outdoors.

‘The doctors of the future will see a different array of presentations and diseases that they are not seeing now,’ says Glasgow University’s Dr Camille Huser, co-chair of the newly formed European Network on Climate & Health Education (Enche). ‘They need to be aware of that so they can recognise them.’

‘This is as pivotal and critical to their thinking as it is to manage obesity, smoking and other environmental challenges. It is simply part of the DNA of being a doctor,’ adds Huser’s co-chair, Professor Iain McInnes.

Accessibility