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The climate crisis poses a “significant and growing threat” to health in the UK, warns the country’s top public health expert.
Professor Jenny Harries, chief executive of Britain’s Health Security Agency, told The Guardian there is a common misconception that warmer weather brings net health benefits thanks to milder winters. But the climate emergency will have far more widespread health impacts, threatening food security, floods and mosquito-borne diseases, she said.
“This summer’s heatwave has had a direct impact on people,” Harries said. “But that’s the breadth of the effect. It’s not just the heat.”
Referring to recent floods in Pakistan, Harries said the UK needs to build resilience to protect people from the health effects of extreme weather.
“Our colleagues in Pakistan… are suffering from the effects of flooding. They are dealing with stagnant water, increasing the risk of sewage flooding into public accessible water bodies,” she said. We are seeing some of what could happen in the UK.”
The aim, she added, is not to paint out “doom and gloom scenarios” but to identify threats the UK can prepare for.
Speaking at the UKHSA’s annual conference in Leeds this week, Harries launched the Center for Climate and Health Security. She argued that health threats should be considered as part of the UK’s broader climate policy, including a commitment to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Even if we take action to limit climate change, “there are built-in factors of rising temperatures that we cannot control,” she said, requiring adaptations to protect health.
This summer, the UK experienced six heatwave periods with record temperatures of 40.3 degrees and more than 2,800 deaths. “If some planes exploded and so many people were lost, it would be front page news in terms of health protection,” Harries said.
Heat-related deaths are projected to triple by 2050, and the hottest summers on record in recent years are projected to simply be “normal” summers. “This is a very short-term risk and a priority for us,” she said. “There are things we can do, and we must act.”
Unlike its hotter European neighbors such as Spain and Italy, Britain’s infrastructure is not designed to allow people to live and work in such conditions.[Hot] Air conditioning is routinely installed in European countries, and there are stone floors that keep buildings cool. We don’t have that in the UK,” said Harries. “We need to think through what our building will look like in the future.”
Lifestyle adaptations, such as not going outdoors during the summer days and extending school summer vacations, may also play a role in the future, she said.
“We have a lot to learn from countries that are currently hot,” she said. “If we’re going to be a hot country anytime soon, we need to think the same way.”
In terms of purely excess annual deaths, the climate crisis is likely to yield interim gains for the UK through warmer winters, Harries said. However, other factors could soon reverse this trend. As temperatures rise, Europe becomes more vulnerable to infectious diseases historically seen in the tropics. The Asian tiger mosquito, which carries dengue and chikungunya, now colonizes southern Europe, and this year France experienced its most severe epidemic of dengue fever to date. Dengue can only be efficiently transmitted by mosquitoes when the average temperature rises above 28 degrees Celsius.
“In France, we have had cases of infections that are typically found in tropical climates, and the vectors have even made their way to Paris,” Harries said. “We are beginning to see the progression of this impact in European countries.
In the UK, Asian tiger mosquito eggs have been detected in the south-east and south-east. Culex pipiens West Nile virus-carrying mosquitoes are found in parts of Kent and Essex. “We are already strengthened [our surveillance programme]but that’s one of the areas we need to flag and build capacity in advance,” she said.
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