How do we solve Climate change

Climate Change: NGO Tells Nigerians To Create Jobs

An NGO, Connected Development (CODE), has called on Nigerian youth to leverage on climate change to create sustainable job opportunities using emerging technology.

The CODE Chief Executive Officer, Mr Hamzat Lawal, on Saturday in Abuja said that climate change was a 21century problem which could also have its advantages.

Lawal said that the challenges associated with climate change arose because of the way we have been living our lives.
He said that as much as climate change was viewed as a problem, it was also an opportunity for the country to manage its limited and scare resources.

”We can generate electricity from solar energy or sunlight. We can use new and emerging technology to cook and reduce greenhouse gas; this is how it can become an opportunity.

”Climate change has affected our economy negatively; also our forest cover has been depleted over time by people cutting down trees for fire or furniture.
”The Lake Chad region which used to be a business hub for Nigeria and even other African countries, where they have fishermen and women doing businesses, is no longer so.

“This is because we have lost over 70 percent of the Lake Chad region. You can’t find any economic activity there today, 70 percent of the water has been lost.

“This means that the young energetic people have now migrated and left the region in search of greener pasture,” he said.

Lawal said that the effect of climate change had caused an increase in migration and this was happening because of the economic decline in the country.
According to him, migration has increased because of the economic crisis in the country, but there is still hope and opportunities abound.

“We are losing talents and young minds that are supposed to help build our growing and thriving economy are leaving the country because of lack of opportunities.

“We are losing resources and this has to do with the fact that environment outside Nigeria is very conducive, but in as much as it is conducive, they also have their own challenges.

“Government needs to look at how we can thrive by tapping into new and emerging technologies like the clean cooking stoves that emit lesser greenhouse gas.

“There is even technology where you can cook with sun ray or use lesser firewood to cook or use biogas,” he said.

Lawal said that over 50 percent of Nigerians were not connected to the national grid and these were basically in various rural communities

“If we can invest more in solar technology, build capacity and also reduce taxes to businesses, it will create value and jobs.

“Over time, we will see that this market will thrive and we will be able to service the under serviced rural people that don’t have equal opportunity like people in the urban areas.

“If there is an enabling environment where there is hope of prosperity, people will not want to travel out of the country.

“People will not want to leave their comfort zone to undertake the risk of travelling for days and putting their lives in danger.

“But, because things are not the way they should be, that is why people are willing to take all manner of risks to better their lives; simply because they believe that there is hope and prosperity on the other side,” he said.

CULLED from pmnewsnigeria.com

Update on the Monkey pox endemic

The Minister of State for Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire has announced laboratory confirmation of six additional cases among the suspected cases of Monkeypox.

These include two cases each in Bayelsa and Akwa Ibom States, one in Enugu State and one in the Federal Capital Territory, making it a total of nine confirmed cases of Monkeypox in Nigeria.

Dr. Ehanire who announced this on Friday in his office in Abuja said investigations were ongoing to see if any of the new cases have a link with the Bayelsa cluster, where the outbreak started.

He called for calm among members of the public, as the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) is working with all affected States to ensure case finding and adequate management.

He added that as frightening as the manifestation of the ailment may seem, no fatality has been recorded to date.

Channels Tv reports that as at October 25, 2017, a total of 94 suspected cases have been reported from 11 States (Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Ekiti, Enugu, Imo, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Rivers) and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

He noted that the newly confirmed cases are patients already being managed by public health authorities and have been receiving appropriate clinical care since the onset of the illness.

The Federal Ministry of Health, through the NCDC, is in close contact with all State Epidemiology Teams, as well as the health facilities providing clinical care to both suspected and confirmed cases.

State Commissioners of Health have been advised to place all health care facilities and disease surveillance and notification officers on alert, to ensure early case detection, reporting, and effective treatment.

“A national-level Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) led by the NCDC with support from our development partners, is coordinating outbreak investigation and response across affected states," Ehinare said.

“The EOC includes the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, as well as experts from partner agencies."

“The NCDC has also deployed Rapid Response Teams to the four states with confirmed cases. Measures have been put in place to ensure proper investigation of all reported cases, effective sample collection, and testing, as well as case management of all suspected and confirmed cases."

“Risk communication activities have been heightened to advise the public as well as healthcare workers on preventive measures. A nationwide communications campaign has begun, to inform Nigerians of key preventive measures to take to curtail the further spread of monkeypox.”

Nigerians are advised to always wash hands with soap and water after contact with animals, when caring for sick relatives, or managing soiled beddings.

The Federal Government of Nigeria reveals the cause of Monkeypox in Nigeria.

The Federal government has identified the recent flooding in some parts of the country has been identified as a leading cause of the monkeypox outbreak ravaging some states in Nigeria.

The Delta State coordinator of the World Health Organisation, WHO, Bassey Bassey, who was represented by Casmir Ifeanyi at a colloquium organised by the Association of Medical Scientists of Nigeria in Abuja on Thursday said this.

He said flooding facilitates infectious disease transmission and exposes affected communities to outbreak of epidemics such as cholera and related ailments.

Speaking on the theme, ‘Perennial Flooding in Nigeria: Communicable diseases and looming antimicrobial resistance’, Mr. Bassey said flood water was a major source of infectious communicable disease because animals defecate in floodwater, which humans later come in contact with.

He said until proven otherwise, he believes flooding has a major role in the sudden outbreak of monkeypox and other diseases.

He explained that animals, displaced from their natural habitat gradually gravitate towards human communities.

”For floods that last seven days, expect waterborne diseases and those lasting between one to four weeks, rodent-borne diseases should be expected. A combination of both water and rodent borne diseases should be expected when flooding last more than four weeks”, he said.

This year, the country witnessed flooding across various states that led to an immediate response by the federal government in selected states.

There were also recorded cases of cholera at some of the camps set up for the internally displaced victims.

Speaking on the effect of flooding on disease outbreaks, the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control, NCDC also agreed on a possible link.

The health agency in previous alert messages during the flooding had advised Nigerians on measures to employ in preventing some diseases.

The national coordinator, NCDC, Chikwe Ihekweazu, who was represented Adedeji Adebayo said ”flood water has become the major source of disease outbreaks especially through contamination with sewage water, human waste, dead bodies of animals, soil pathogens, deadly particles and chemicals.”

He said flood water can also contain disease causing bacteria, viruses and parasites.

Mr. Ihekweazu said since some animals are also treated with antibiotics, ”when humans eat them, they sometimes become antibiotic resistant, which can lead to the spread of infectious diseases.”

Identifying some of the flood-prone area in the country, he said states within the River Benue and Niger belts as well as the coastal areas are highest hits. States like Akwa – Ibom, Adamawa, Bayelsa, Cross river, Jigawa, Kaduna and Lagos were part of those listed.

Four of the states listed have also been ravaged by suspected cases of monkey pox. The first suspected case of monkey pox was recorded in Bayelsa, with 74 cases currently been handled in 11 states.

The federal ministry of health and NCDC has advised Nigerians to remain calm as the government doing all it can to contain the spread.

SOURCE: Premium Times

Towards a healthier and safer environment

The Lancet Commission on pollution and health by Philip Landrigan and colleagues (1) is an immensely important piece of work highlighting the impact that environmental pollution has on death and disease and the related need to scale up political will if we are to effectively confront this issue.

WHO has long recognised the important influence that environmental integrity has on human health and development. We know from WHO’s most recent environmental burden of disease assessment that at least 12.6 million people die each year because of preventable environmental causes (2). This is almost a quarter of all annual deaths globally. Environmental risk factors—mainly due to the influence of air pollution on non-communicable diseases—are driving up healthcare costs, which consume nearly 10% of global gross domestic product (3), (4). Moreover, as highlighted by this Commission, it is vulnerable populations in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) that are most heavily affected. This is an unacceptable loss of lives and human development potential.

Michaela Pfeiffer, Technical Officer, Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health.

Today, we have more knowledge, evidence, and understanding than ever before about how and through what pathways climate and environmental change impact health. We know which sector policies and interventions effectively address environmental root causes of disease (eg, energy, transport, housing, and agriculture) and in which settings (eg, cities, workplaces, and homes) these interventions will likely have the greatest impact. For instance, energy policies that facilitate or scale up household access to clean fuels for cooking, heating, and lighting in LMICs will help avert the 3.5 million deaths per year that result from exposure to household air pollution(5). We also know many of the co-benefits to health, the environment, and the economy that could accrue with a more integrated approach to development policy and planning.

Dr Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, WHO Climate Change Lead

This is particularly the case in cities that are home to about 4 billion people—nearly half of the world’s population (6). People who live in cities are exposed to a range of environmental threats such as those arising from lack of adequate housing and transport and poor water, sanitation, and waste management. Nearly 90% of the population living in cities worldwide is breathing air that fails to meet WHO air quality guideline limits (7). Since most future population growth will take place in cities, urban expansion needs to be planned and designed in ways that make cities a centre of health and wellbeing. Specific sector policies such as energy, urban planning, transport, and infrastructure should be designed and implemented with clear and tangible health and environmental objectives in mind.

Governance of environmental threats to health is, however, also more challenging today than ever before. As argued persuasively in the LancetCommission, environmental risk factors are changing in nature, origin, and influence. Some countries now face a combination of unresolved and new environmental and health challenges, where, for example, the poorest populations do not have access to clean water, clean household energy, and sanitation, and other populations are being increasingly exposed to chemicals, radiation, air pollution, and new and more complex occupational hazards. Conflict and natural disasters are adding further complexity to these governance challenges.

Simply put, the ways environmental threats to health are governed are no longer suited to today’s development context. We need a different approach. Although we do need more pollution control strategies to set and regulate environmental emission thresholds and to foster increased use of best available techniques and best environmental practices, pollution is not the root driver of ill health. Pollution is a symptom and unintended consequence of unhealthy and unsustainable development. If we want to substantially reduce the global environmental burden of disease, we need to act further upstream and address the drivers and sources of pollution to ensure that development policies and investments are healthy and sustainable by design and that the choices we make—at the government, private sector, and individual levels—cultivate a healthier and safer environment. In other words, we need to move beyond a “do-no-harm” approach and ensure that development actively and explicitly improves the environmental and social conditions that give rise to, and expose populations to, disease.

The timing of this Lancet Commission could not be better given the clear need to scale up action in support of this agenda. There is growing global momentum around the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, arguably one of the most important treaties for public health in decades. This momentum, together with increased global demand for universal access to clean energy and more sustainable urban development, as reflected in the New Urban Agenda(8), provide a strategic opportunity for health actors to influence development policies and investments that can give rise to major environmental threats to health.

Annette Prüss-Ustün, Scientist, Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health