Title : Climate change and health impact in Sub Saharan Africa: Case studies of evidence in Africa
Abstract:
Climate change has severe consequences for health in Africa, exacerbating existing health issues and creating new ones. Rising temperatures and extreme weather events increase the spread of diseases like malaria, diarrhea, typhoid and cancer which already claims hundreds of thousands of lives annually, primarily among children and the elderly. In this article, we report for the first time selected discrete choice lived experience cases from Nigeria, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Sierra leone, Kenya and Eswatini where climate change triggered floods and drought have disrupted the endemicity of malaria and typhoid sparking concerns of resistant drug strains of Plasmodium falciparium and Salmonella typhi, while discharging cancer precursors availing it in water and food chains. Lived experience reports from these selected countries expressed indication of increased zoonotic diseases. This is the first time; discrete lived experience stories serve as reality check in climate change and epidemiology. The implication of these lived experience stories where affected and vulnerable communities have encountered the reality of the impact of climate change on health and we discussed these results in the light of how primary health care facilities in these countries can re adjust to start addressing health care in the light of the threats of climate change impact on health.
