Africa CDC advocates for health agenda at core of climate talks

Africa Centre for Disease Control (CDC) has its eyes fixed on the next Conference of Parties (COP 28) meeting coming up in December to see the place of the health agenda as the sector is increasingly becoming more affected.

Already the Centre, housed at the Africa Union Headquarters is in the process of fine-tuning its position to have the health agenda prioritised at the Climate talks in Abu Dhabi, Dubai.

This will begin at the ongoing Africa Climate talks in Nairobi, where Africa CDC and partners hope to have this opinion shaped and concretised.

It emerged at a side event on the ongoing Africa Climate Summit that the health agenda has – for more than three decades – been pushed to the periphery as the world discussed the impact of climate change in the scope of development and agriculture.

Discussions at a meeting in a Nairobi hotel – organised to discuss the ‘One Health Approach to the rising climate-related health threats in Africa’ – unanimously called for a break to the endless discussions, and promote action.

“We have talked enough, and now we feel that it’s time for action and the actions have to be tangible,” Africa CDC acting director, Dr. Ahamed Ogwell stated when he spoke to journalists.

Participants in this meeting, mainly health experts in Africa feel that Africa must do more to safeguard its health security on the basis of lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic as well as Ebola and Monkeypox outbreaks.

These three pandemics, according to the experts underlined the need for increased self-reliance in the continent’s health systems. There was a general feeling yesterday that if there was to be a moment when the continent had an opportunity to have the health agenda squeezed firmly in future climate meetings, it would be the ongoing climate talks in Nairobi.

“We have been talking a lot about climate change, and health issue has not been a priority. This has happened for three decades now, and even at the COP28 in December this year, the conversation is around climate change on the environment,” Dr Ogwell said.

And delving further into the issue, he pointed out that the actions that need to be taken have been slow; and even slower when they are on climate change and health.

“This is because the latter (health) is not very high on the agenda of the different COPs that have taken place ever since,” he noted this and emphasised a common goal towards making health discussions more urgent than ever.

Statistics from the Africa CDC show that 23 per cent of global disease is attributed to climate change and 29 per cent of this comes from Sub-Saharan Africa.

“Public health emergencies attributable to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases have increased nearly fourfold over the past 60 years,” Dr Ogwell highlighted.

The Africa CDC believes Climate Change is an immediate and escalating threat to public health in Africa, exacerbating existing vulnerabilities and creating new challenges.

Head of Laboratory Systems at the institution, Dr. Yenew Kebede delved into the aspect of the increasing frequency of extreme weather events, noting that the rise of zoonotic diseases and heightened incidence of vector- and water-borne illnesses are posing a formidable challenge to human well-being and safety in the region.

“Coupled with rapid population growth and globalisation, these factors strain ecosystems and elevate the risks of diseases like malaria, cholera, and Rift Valley disease,” he said during a panel discussion- One Health Approach: Enhancing Disease Surveillance and Early Warning Systems Integrating Human, Animal, and Environmental Health.

In Africa, more than 100 disease outbreaks and other health events are reported on the continent annually. The unprecedented size, frequency and scope of health emergencies have also increased due to various factors, including unplanned urbanisation, population increases and movement, and climate change-related events such as floods, droughts and cyclones.

In a presentation during another panel dialogue on Understanding the Interconnections: Climate Change, Environment, and Current Landscape of Climate-Related Infectious Diseases in Africa, Waltaji Kutane highlighted that a total of cholera 178, 672 cases were detected from 17 African Union Member States this year.

“This surpassed the annual totals from 2019-2022,” he added.

Yesterday, Kutane said five countries accounted for less than 50 percent of cases in 2023 in Africa; Malawi, Mozambique, DRC, Ethiopia and Somalia. This was attributed to tropical cyclones in Malawi and Mozambique, while in Ethiopia and Somalia, severe drought hit the Horn of Africa countries.

In Kenya since the start of the outbreak in October 2022, data from the Ministry of Health and its partners, including the Kenya Red Cross showed a rapid spread of cases following the December festive and travel season across 25 counties which were reporting cases by 2023.

The number of Cholera cases increased rapidly from 4,821 by 14 February to 11,694 cases by the end of June 2023 – a 59 per cent increase – and 22,569 households were reported displaced by floods.

The increasing and protracted humanitarian crises, including mass refugee migration, internal population displacements and cross-border movements, have created opportunities for the spread of infectious diseases and disrupted access to health services, according to Africa CDC.

Public health emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the EVD outbreak in West Africa from 2014 to 2016, revealed gaps in Member States’ abilities to prepare for and respond to public health emergencies. There are multiple challenges to emergency preparedness and response in Africa, including; limited access to healthcare services and little resilience in health systems.

Only about 42 per cent of the population in Africa can access healthcare services.

So Ogwell said that the side event was hosted to talk about the relationship between climate change and health; the environment and animal health as well.

“We are therefore trying to bring all this together, to see how best we can prevent the disasters that come about as a result of the effects of climate change,” he said, emphasising that in Africa all these aspects are not just important, but it’s a survival issue with agriculture is suffering, health as well, and as a result, development too.

“So bringing the health discussion onto the agenda of the Climate Change platform is essential for Africa,” he said.

He attributed this to two reasons; one, the burden of health-related impact is largely felt in Africa, and secondly, the continent is facing much higher risks when it comes to agricultural disruption and hence, food insecurity and nutrition poverty.

“So for these two reasons we must bring the issues around health onto the discussions of Climate Summit, not just here on the continent but also globally,” he said.

He added; “As Africa CDC and Africa Union, health as a point of discussion within the Climate Summit is a priority and we are bringing that priority to this side event and to the Africa Climate Summit and we will bring that priority in the COP 28 later on in the year.”

Dr. Ogwell pointed out that the African Union is getting the health discussions onto the Climate Change agenda.

He said this is not just prioritising it from the need for it to be a discussion, but doing it to influence action.

“And for us, if there is discussion and no action, we are not discussing anything,” he said.

Climate-related emergencies are looming; cholera has swept the eastern and southern parts of the continent; drought, and malaria in places that never were thought to experience it.

Some of the diseases outlined as climate change-related include; cholera and those that are transmitted from animals to humans as a reaction to disruptions in the environment.

And with drought, the region is seeing diseases such as yellow fever and Rift Valley fever.

There are also emerging diseases such as Ebola and Marbug among others.

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