Early Lessons from Implementation of Climate Change and Human Health Study in Zambia

1. Early Lessons from Implementation of Climate Change and Human Health Study in Zambia Early Lessons from Implementation of Climate Change Adaptation Projects in South-Eastern Africa, Organised by IISD, IIED and SSN. Maputo, Mozambique April 24 and 25, 2007 Dr. George B. Kasali Technical Manager Energy and Environmental Concerns for Zambia (EECZ) kasali_george@yahoo.com

2. Defining Health • Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. [WHO, 1946] focus on whole populations • broad definition of health • population health depends not only on the provision of good healthcare services but also on the physical, social, cultural and economic environment people live in.

3. Location: Country – ZambiaDistricts: Lundazi and Mazabuka

4. Project: Country Study of Adaptation to Climate Change and Human Health in Zambia CONTEXT Initiated by IIED out of concern for the following: • Zambia has a GDP of USD 400 per capita, with over two-thirds of the population living under the national poverty line. • 60% of the households had been severely food-insecure since the 1990s. • The vulnerability of families is aggravated by the increasing AIDS pandemic weakening the public sector and threatening long-term national development.

5. Context cont’d • Cholera and other waterborne diseases, such as dysentery, are endemic. • Malaria causes about 15% of maternal deaths, 40% of infant deaths and 46% of outpatient morbidity. All the above compounded and confounded by: • Consecutive seasons of drought and floods since 2001. • In 2004/2005 prolonged drought affected over half of the country’s provinces, leaving an estimated 1.2 million people in need of food assistance. • In 2006/2007 severe flooding has affected over 1.4 million people and damaged infrastructure worth millions of dollars.

6. Objectives • Key project objective was to provide evidence-based scientific information for decision-making on adaptation of human health to climate change.

7. Activities • Review and analyze secondary information and data on human health and climate variability in Zambia • Conduct a case study analysis of the impacts of climatic hazards (droughts and floods) on human health, with emphasis on specific diseases. • Compile a report and hold a stakeholder workshop to derive policy actions and future research needs.

8. Duration, Budget and Sponsors of Project • The project duration was two years • Funding was 5,000 pounds sterling • Funded by International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) of London.

9. Innovative Elements of Project • Currently, official Ministry of Health data dates from 1998, however analysis of climate-health interactions requires long-term data with a time-span of 20 – 30 years. • Health data dating back to 1970s was found in discarded files dumped in drawers, cupboards and store-rooms of health facilities. • Data dating back to 1940s was also found stashed in national information archives of Zambia

10. Innovative Elements of Project Cont’d • Climate disasters are usually location specific and official personnel take time to reach these areas, therefore, information was also compiled from: • Newspaper reports, TV clips and NGO-networks such as the Red Cross Society.

11. Issues - Opportunities Funding chances can be enhanced if: • Project targets diseases with global impacts such as HIV/AIDS • Project targets specific population groups such as children or incorporates health issues into such sectors such as agriculture or gender This year Ministry of Health has become quite receptive to climate change issues-due to a policy statement by Minister of Health.

12. Issues – Opportunities Cont’d • The National Vulnerability Assessment Committee under SADC have become an important source of data on impacts of floods and droughts as they conduct food security assessments on a yearly basis. Health data is also included.

13. Issues – Concerns and Challenges • Initial resistance of health personnel to climate change issues due to initial national focus on climate change mitigation alone. • Inadequate technical skills for analyzing the linkage between human health and climate variability • Difficulties in extrapolating findings from community level to national and global scales • Divergence of data values depending on source.

14. Early Lessons Learnt • Zambia has the health data for quantifying relationships between climate variability and human health, except time and resources are needed to mine it. • There are more diseases than malaria and diarrhoea that are sensitive to climate. • Human health adaptation to climate change carries both local and global benefits due to the pandemic nature of diseases and the globalization of labour and commodity markets. • The climate-health models that are solely based on climatic data, such as MARA, can be validated with actual health data in Zambia.

15. Conclusion and Recommendations • Zambia and Africa present very good models for studying climate-health interactions as confounding factors are relatively few. • There is need to preserve the currently discarded data of the 1970s and 1980s in Zambia • There is very high demand for policy-oriented and multi-scaled research on climate-health interactions in developing countries. • It is imperative to provide training in methods for quantifying the link between climate variability and human health. Zambia is also besieged with climate-hazard induced outbreaks of livestock diseases. Some of these are zoonotic. • A holistic approach to climate change adaptation in the health sector is mandatory as the main determinants of health are outside the health sector.