Climate Change: A Threat to Human Health

Climate change will have a wide range of implications to human health. These include thermal-related morbidity and mortality due to extreme temperatures, effects associated with air pollution, impacts of extreme weather events, malnutrition, water-borne (e.g. diarrhea, cholera, typhoid) and vector-borne diseases (e.g. malaria, dengue). Much of the health risk posed by climate change is preventable or curable through the scale-up of existing health programmes and interventions. Intensive action to strengthen public health systems and to promote sustainable and healthy development choices can enhance current health conditions as well as reduce vulnerability to future climate change.