BUILDING A RESILIENT HEALTHCARE SYSTEM IN AFRICA THROUGH ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING ENVIRONMENT LENS

An insightful African proverb reminds us that “when a small toe is hurting, the whole body swoops down to attend to it”. This analogises the importance of health — it is simply impossible to ignore. This reality was reflected at COP28, which went down in history as the first “health COP”, culminating in the adoption, by 148 member states, of the “COP28 Declaration on Climate and Health”. Accompanying this declaration was a commitment of an initial tranche of $1 billion for its operationalisation. Coming after 30 years of COPs, this declaration sounded the alarm on the severe health implications of climate change and represented a paradigm shift, where, henceforth, the health discourse moves from being a footnote to a headnote in the climate change discourse. The urgency to address these nexus connections in building resilient healthcare systems cannot be overstated. The science is clear — increased temperatures accelerate the multiplication of microbes and create conditions that favour the shift of disease pathogens to newer areas where they precipitate diseases. Increasing emissions are aggravating almost 60% of all infections. Antimicrobial resistance, in which Africa has the highest deaths, is accelerated at higher temperatures. Furthermore, over half of human pathogenic diseases can be aggravated by…