Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jun 06, 2017 News
Guyana will, this week, draft a National Action Plan (NAP) to help reduce the negative impact of climate change on health, according to Mr. Steve Chichester, Principal Environmental Health Officer of the Public Health Ministry.
Chichester said on Monday that the strategy will be completed by Tuesday, the final day of the two-day inter-agency seminar organised by the Environmental Health Unit (EHU) of the Public Health Ministry in collaboration with PAHO/WHO.
The strategy is also expected to build capacity of MOPH officers and other stakeholders to implement effective programmes to help reduce the negative effects of climate change on the sector and prepare related agencies to have in place mechanisms to “mitigate the impact of climate change on health,” Chichester said.
He anticipates that the blueprint will put a premium on public awareness to improve the knowledge of Guyanese and enable them to discern the link between climate change and health.
In addition, the draft MOPH/PAHO/WHO document will also emphasise stakeholder preparedness “to respond to emergencies related to climate change as far as practicable,” the EHU official explained.
The PAHO/WHO-supported programme is ongoing at the Regency Suites and Hotel, Hadfield Street, in the capital. Several local stakeholders have showed up for the seminar, including the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI); the Ministry of Communities; the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); the Office of Climate Change within the Ministry of the Presidency; the Ministry of Natural Resources; the Hydro Meteorological, the Guyana Livestock Development Agency (GLDA) and the Pesticide, Chemical and Poisons Board of the Ministry of Agriculture; the Municipalities of Georgetown, Linden and New Amsterdam and all environmental departments of the other seven Regions.
That the climate change phenomena have a damaging impact on individuals, communities, regions and the country as a whole, is undisputed, according to Chichester. He said the EHU recognises the importance of collaboration in helping it prepare the essential guide “to enhance its effectiveness” hence the PAHO/WHO backing.
Guyana, like the rest of the Region, suffers from several endemic and environmentally-sensitive disaster vectors, according to PAHO/WHO Advisor, Abrianus Ton Vlugman. Vlugman said too that the Region is “particularly vulnerable because they tend to have a dual disease burden: many endemic and environmentally-sensitive disease vectors (and) human populations with high rates of cardio-respiratory diseases.”
This burden is exacerbated because the health systems of individual territories are “generally underfunded”, the PAHO/WHO Advisor noted. He was referring to an ECLAC report.
The spike in temperature attributed to climate change is expected to increase dengue fever transmission by some 300 percent, Vlugman warned because “increased temperature reduces incubation time of the parasite.”
Guyana and the rest of the Caribbean were counselled to improve their data collection and dissemination of climate-related information; undertake research on the impact climate change on health and related variables and diseases; do trend analyses on climate and determinants of health indicators health status, e.g. heat-attributable mortality and to strengthen the public health system which “is necessary with or without climate change”.
“Climate change makes this need even more critical and urgent,” Vlugman pointed out.
In addition, Guyana and the rest of the Caribbean are advised to establish more data on “how droughts and floods affect agriculture production” and their collective consequences for food insecurity and malnutrition, Vlugman said.
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