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afrol.com, 10 December - Increased desertification and drought represent a serious threat to human health, says the World Health Organization (WHO). In Africa, these basically environmental problems cause millions of deaths, especially among children and women, when linked to poverty. - Women and children are particularly vulnerable- says Dr Bettina Menne of WHO's global change and health programme. "In Africa, some 49% of the 10 million annual deaths among children under 5 years of age are associated with malnutrition. Desertification, deforestation and overuse of wilderness areas have drastically reduced the amount of supplementary products gathered in the bush, which provide nutritional supplements to entire families. Furthermore, changes in local biodiversity can put at risk traditional medicine, which plays a very important role all over Africa." WHO will express this concern at an international Conference on the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) which will be held in Bonn, Germany (11-22 December). - As environmental changes increasingly impinge on human health on an unprecedented and global scale, we are becoming increasingly concerned with the consequences of desertification and drought, such as malnutrition and famine, waterborne diseases, other infectious diseases, respiratory diseases and burn injuries, says Dr Roberto Bertollini, a WHO director at the Regional Office for Europe. "Although further research is necessary, there is sufficient evidence that desertification and drought harm human health." - Desertification and drought are directly linked to poverty, food and water shortages, conflict, mass migration, increased poverty, increased risk of fire, decreased availability of fuel and limited access to health care, adds Mr Hama Arba Diallo, Executive Secretary of UNCCD. The effects of desertification, drought and poverty can include protein-energy malnutrition intrauterine growth retardation and deficiencies of several micronutrients (such as iron and Vitamin A), infections, blindness and anaemia. WHO points out that the drying of water sources forces people to use heavily polluted water, leading to severe epidemics. In particular, desertification and droughts can increase water-related diseases such as cholera, typhoid, hepatitis A and diarrhoeal diseases. Malaria epidemics are also subject to rapid increases in incidence, usually related to season and population movements. The Sahel is the only dryland in the world to have experienced a long drought, with a 21% decline in annual rainfall over the past 100 years. Rainfall has also become less predictable, making malaria prevalence in Sahelian countries appear to be in decline but likely to become unstable, with epidemics occurring in years with excessive rainfall. Furthermore, drought increases the susceptibility of some forests and rangelands to fire, often resulting in severe episodes of air pollution, which may also affect neighbouring countries. This biomass burning can cause acute respiratory disease and exacerbate chronic respiratory disease in children and adults. - At the beginning of the twenty-first century, we are seeing environmental changes occurring simultaneously and often interactively. They will affect us directly, says Dr. Bertollini, "so the process of desertification and land degradation is happening at the same time as altered composition of the atmosphere, depletion of terrestrial aquifers and ocean fisheries and loss of biodiversity. The impact of these trends on health will become apparent during the coming decades." - Today, the tools exist to prevent or control most of the world's biggest killers, through measures leading for example to adequate levels of safe water, secure shelter, and access to education and health care, vaccination programmes and food supplies and reserves, concludes Mr Diallo. "Nevertheless, such measures will be really effective in the world's drylands only if adequate health policies and measures are fully integrated into programmes to combat desertification." UNCCD stresses the global dimension of desertification and calls for increased efforts to implement national, subregional and regional action programmes to combat it, thus promoting sustainable development particularly in the drylands of our planet. It is a legally binding instrument resulting from the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992). To date, 172 countries are Parties to UNCCD. Source: Based on WHO Denmark
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