Message from WHO Nigeria Head of Mission and Country Representative, Dr Walter Kazadi Mulombo - Afrihealth Optonet Association (AHOA)
World Health Day 2022
Message from WHO Nigeria Head of Mission and Country Representative, Dr Walter Kazadi Mulombo
Protocol: In line with the established protocol.
I bring you healthy regards of the World Health Organization (WHO) and join experts and stakeholders in health and other sectors in Nigeria to share the delight of the 2022 World Health Day Celebration.
World Health Day has been observed annually on 7 April, since 1950, to commemorate the anniversary of the founding of the World Health Organization (WHO) two years previously. This year’s theme, Our Planet, Our Health, serves as a timely reminder of the inextricable link between the planet and our health, as the burden of noncommunicable and infectious diseases rises alongside growing incidence of climate-related challenges.
Climate change is manifesting in increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, changing rainfall patterns, and more frequent and severe extreme weather conditions. WHO estimates that more than 13 million annual deaths globally are due to avoidable environmental causes, including the climate crisis.
With direct consequences for the key determinants of health, climate change is negatively impacting air and water quality, food security, and human habitat and shelter. The knock-on effect for the burden of heart and lung disease, stroke and cancer, among others, is evident from statistics that point to NCDs representing a growing proportion of Africa’s disease burden including Nigeria.[1]
In Nigeria and many part of African continent, NCDs are set to overtake communicable diseases, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional conditions combined, to become the leading cause of death by 2030.[2] COVID-19, along with spiraling obesity, diabetes and hypertension rates, compounds the challenge, highlighting the urgency of a multi-sectoral response.
In Nigeria climate change is already increasing the vulnerability of health systems. Warming of 2-3°C is estimated to increase the higher risks of malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, Lassa fever, cholera and other diseases especially in coastal regions such as Lagos and Port Harcourt and in the Lake Chad Basin.
Consequently, Nigeria’s commitment to reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emission by 20% unconditionally and 47% with international support, and the development the Sectoral Action Plan (SAP) for the implementation of the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) in the key priority sectors are commendable.
During the past two decades, most public health events have been climate-related, whether they were vector- or water-borne, transmitted from animals to humans, or the result of natural disasters. For example, diarrhoeal diseases are the third leading cause of disease and death in children younger than five in Africa, a significant proportion of which is preventable through safe drinking water, and adequate sanitation and hygiene.
However, 3 in 10 people in Nigeria don't have clean water close to home, putting them under constant threat from waterborne diseases like cholera. The more our climate changes, the more challenging this becomes. Though in 2018, President Mohammmed Buhari declared a state of emergency in Nigeria’s Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector, yet 30 per cent of Nigerians do not have access to a basic water services, more than half of rural water sources are contaminated. of the resultant effect of inadequate access to WASH services is increasing child deaths linked to outbreaks of cholera and WASH related diseases[3].
Meanwhile, a heating world is seeing mosquitos spread diseases further and faster than ever before, with serious consequences for Nigeria which reported 31.9%% of all malaria cases recorded in Africa region and 27% of global cases in 2021.[4]
In 2018, African health and environment ministers endorsed the 10-year Libreville Declaration on Health and Environment in Africa, signed in 2008. This is a WHO-supported framework aimed at promoting government investment in addressing environmental problems that impact human health - such as air pollution, contamination of water sources, and ecosystem damage.
With Nigeria population estimated at 208 million and projected to grow to surpass that of the United States by 2050, at which point it would become the third largest country in the world[5]., we can expect burgeoning urbanization into areas exposed to natural hazards, and a concomitant increase in associated injuries, disease and deaths. As such, I urge our WHO State offices across the 36 states in Nigeria to urgently initiate climate change and health adaptation and mitigation actions.
Being part of the solution, in 2021, WHO has facilitated the signing of 1st ever Nigeria Health Sector Ministerial Commitment and Public Declaration to building a climate-resilient and sustainable health system with deadlines prior to COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in October 2021. WHO has also supported Nigeria to develop her health climate profiles in 2015. And prior to the onset of the first index of COVID-19 in Nigeria in 2020, WHO has collaborated with the Federal Ministry of Health to train over 74 experts and climate change health desk officers across the 36+1 states in Nigeria to coordinate health system climate initiatives at sub-national level. We have supported Nigeria to activate a national Technical Working Group on Climate Change and Health.
In a multisectoral one-health approach and in furtherance to achieving the NDC, we shall support the development of Nigeria National Health Adaptation Plan (HNAP) and Conduct assessment of the vulnerability and adaptive capacity of the health systems to climate change comprising essential public health interventions, in line with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and COP26 Health Programme.
Governments, civil society, nongovernment organizations and communities need to work together, empowering one another to ensure the continued delivery of essential health services during future extreme events, while containing the growing incidence of environment- and lifestyle-related diseases.
We cannot afford to lose sight of the fundamental truth that the climate crisis, the single biggest threat facing humanity today, is also very much a health crisis.
Learn more:
https://www.who.int/campaigns/world-health-day/2022
https://www.afro.who.int/sites/default/files/2017-06/decLibrevilleDeclaration.pdf
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health
https://www.afro.who.int/health-topics/protection-human-environment
[1] Global Burden of Disease (2019)
[2] Bigna JJ, Noubiap JJ. The rising burden of non-communicable diseases in sub-Saharan Africa. 2019. Lancet Global Health. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(19)30370-5
[3] World Health Organization (2010). Vision 2030: the resilience of water supply and sanitation in the face of climate change, p. 47. WHO, Geneva, Switzerland
[4] World Health Organization (2021). Malaria Fact Sheet
[5] World Population Prospects: The 2017 Revision
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