{"id":5487,"date":"2019-09-20T09:31:52","date_gmt":"2019-09-20T06:31:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=5487"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:33","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:33","slug":"ghanas-health-system-isnt-quite-ready-for-climate-change-realities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/09\/20\/ghanas-health-system-isnt-quite-ready-for-climate-change-realities\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghana\u2019s Health System Isn\u2019t Quite Ready for Climate Change Realities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>By\nLucia Hussey<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Climate\nchange has been labelled as the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/globalchange\/publications\/quantitative-risk-assessment\/en\/\">greatest\npublic health risk<\/a>&nbsp;of the 21st century. Health risks from climate\nchange are expected to become increasingly severe in the coming years.\nThey&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/lancet\/article\/PIIS0140-6736(15)60854-6\/fulltext\">threaten\nthe many advances<\/a>&nbsp;being made in global public health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Several\nhealth risks are anticipated from climate change. These include increases of\nvector-borne and diarrhoeal diseases. There are also changes in the geographic\nrange of infectious diseases. This means a spread into new regions, the\nemergence of new infectious diseases and reemergence of old ones. An increase\nin the intensity of infectious diseases in already endemic regions is also\nexpected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Although\nclimate change is a global threat, the potential risks are relatively higher in\ndeveloping economies. These countries have overburdened and weak health\nsystems, coupled with persistently poor health infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s\nanticipated that some of the worst effects of climate change will be felt\nin&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/journals.plos.org\/plosmedicine\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pmed.1001374\">sub-Saharan\nAfrica<\/a>. For example, climatic change has been reported as a driving force\nfor the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.semanticscholar.org\/paper\/Climate-change-and-highland-malaria%3A-fresh-air-for-Chaves-Koenraadt\/fe1c6813a605d7727a93cfb948878976b57d8706\">malaria<\/a>&nbsp;highland\ninvasion in the East African highlands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\nis crucial that countries\u2019 public health systems are able to cope with climate\nsensitive diseases. The World Health Organization (WHO)&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/globalchange\/summary\/en\/index10.html\">has\nacknowledged<\/a>&nbsp;this and has&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/globalchange\/resources\/toolkit\/en\/\">outlined<\/a>&nbsp;a\nrange of mitigating measures. It identifies rebuilding public health capacity\namong the most important, cost-effective and urgent responses to climate\nchange. This includes training in climate change and health to strengthen the\ntechnical and professional capacity of health personnel. Effective surveillance\nand emergency response systems also need to be put in place, coupled with\nsustainable prevention and control programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/ghanas-health-system-isnt-quite-ready-for-climate-change-realities-122912\">Continue\nreading\u2026<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Lucia Hussey Climate change has been labelled as the&nbsp;greatest public health risk&nbsp;of the 21st century. Health risks from climate change are expected to become increasingly severe in the coming&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}