Home » WHO, pollution and climate crisis are threats to health – Health

WHO, pollution and climate crisis are threats to health – Health

by admin
WHO, pollution and climate crisis are threats to health – Health

Cancer, infectious diseases, heart attacks, strokes and asthma, linked to smog, polluted water, global warming and soil consumption: more than 13 million deaths worldwide, every year, are due to avoidable environmental causes, including the climate crisis, which is “the greatest health threat to humanity”. It is a call to take care of our health by taking care of the planet, the message launched by the World Health Organization for World Health Day, the World Health Day which is celebrated on 7 April.

To commemorate the anniversary of the founding of WHO, which took place on April 7, 1948, each year a theme is chosen that highlights an area of ​​priority public health concern. In the midst of the Covid pandemic, faced with an increasingly polluted planet and a growing incidence of chronic non-communicable diseases, the theme of World Health Day 2022 is “Our planet, our health“.

Over the past few decades, improvements in health and hygiene services, along with the spread of drugs and vaccines, have contributed to an increase in average life expectancy. However, air and water pollution are “urgent threats to public health“. Suffice it to say that 9 out of 10 people breathe polluted air and air pollution linked to fossil fuels kills 7 million people every year, or 13 every minute, due to lung cancer, heart disease and stroke, while 2 billion people do not they have safe drinking water from polluted lakes, rivers or aquifers and 3.6 billion do not have safe sanitation. And, still 829,000 people die every year from diarrheal diseases caused by polluted water and poor sanitation. Antibiotics given to humans, animals and plants are entering our drinking water by spreading superbugs resistant to antimicrobial drugs.

See also  What is Marburg virus: symptoms and transmission

The focus this year is above all on the “climate crisis which is a health crisis”. Frequent floods and extreme rainfall due to climate change cause drowning, injuries, trauma and infectious diseases. Increasing drought and fires cause suffocation, burns, respiratory diseases. Rising temperatures will put another 2 billion people at risk of dengue infection, whose cases have increased more than 8 times in the past 20 years, reaching over 5 million cases per year.

As for cigarette smoking, the WHO recalls, it harms not only individuals but the planet: “600 million trees are cut down to produce 6 trillion cigarettes every year, reducing the clean air we breathe”. Butts are the most abundant form of plastic waste in the world, accounting for 767,000 kilos of toxic waste every year that “fill cities, parks, beaches and rivers.” These will be the numbers that the WHO will disseminate in a social media campaign, marked with the hashtag #healthiertomorrow.

You may also like

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Accept Read More

Privacy & Cookies Policy