Disease peril from global warming

AN EXPERT on the effects climate change has on public health has warned that countries such as Ireland could be at risk from tropical diseases such as malaria and dengue fever in the future.

Prof Mike Gill, co-chairman of the British Climate and Health Council, said projected rises in temperatures would see diseases migrate north and allow parasites arriving in imported fruit to thrive and infect the general population.

He cited bluetongue disease as an example of the impact climate change has had on general health.

Bluetongue, which affects sheep and cattle, has usually been confined to hot climates, but has gradually migrated northwards and has reached the UK in recent years.

Prof Gill will tell a conference in Dublin on Thursday that health professionals had been “unjustifiably silent” on climate change, allowing the debate to be dominated by issues surrounding the environment and the economy.

He will speak at the Institute of Public Health in Ireland’s conference on health and climate change at the Royal College of Physicians. The conference will be opened by the Minister for the Environment, John Gormley.

Prof Gill said climate change was “the most important public health challenge we face”, not only in the developing world where there was a threat of food and water shortages, but also in the developed world.

He believed that rising sea levels would make it increasingly difficult for people to live in coastal cities because of the risk of contamination of the fresh water supply.

“It is ridiculous that the whole debate is framed in environmental terms.

“It is an issue that is staring us in the face, but it seems that, like obesity, we are coming to it too late,” he said.

“We need to transform the political space in which politicians are empowered to act.”

Prof Gill said lessening our dependency on cars by walking and cycling and eating less meat had obvious health benefits as well as being good for the environment.