Climate change is a reality and is advancing rapidly and causing severe transformations, especially in developing countries. Experts from various countries met in Maputo to discuss the latest scientific evidence and national and international experiences on climate change and health, as well as to raise awareness at national level of the impact of climate change on health.
Held in a hybrid format (face-to-face and virtual), the meeting is organised by the National Health Institute (INS), the National Health Observatory (ONS) and partners, and featured a speech by the Deputy Minister of Health, Ilesh Jani, who warned that Mozambique is one of the countries most vulnerable to extreme weather events, suffering the negative impact of droughts, tropical cyclones and floods on a cyclical basis, which means that maintaining the important progress made in various health indicators represents a major challenge.
"The experience of the most recent cyclones demonstrates that extreme events have a high potential to cause setbacks in the structuring of the health system and in programme gains," he said, revealing that the destruction of infrastructure caused by cyclones Idai in 2019 and Freddy in 2023 had started the cholera outbreak, with more than 3,500 cases in Sofala in 2019 and more than 10,000 cases in Zambézia in 2023.
According to Ilesh Jani, months after Cyclone Idai, there was also an outbreak of Pelagra, a disease associated with poor nutrition in the district of Nhamatanda, in Sofala province.
At the same time, Ilesh Jani looked at the worsening impacts of climate change in the country, emphasising that the incidence of diseases such as malaria, dengue and cholera could increase significantly if measures are not taken to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and urgently invest in the adaptation and resilience of the health system.
Ilesh Jani was speaking at the opening ceremony of the conference on the impact of climate change on health, being held at the Joaquim Chissano International Conference Centre in Maputo.
Jani emphasised that the event was timely as it was taking place at a time when the Conference of the Parties (COP28) in Dubai was well underway.
We hope that the delegates from Mozambique and other countries will come away from this meeting with information for the discussions at COP28 which, for the first time this year, will devote a day to debating Health and Climate," he said.
On the occasion, the representative of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Mozambique, Severin Xylander, urged the event's partners to increase their investments in health systems, especially in issues related to climate and health.
Despite progress in obtaining funding to tackle climate-related issues, the allocation of resources by donors and philanthropists has not been able to provide an effective response to priorities related to climate and health," emphasising that the WHO is also working on protecting health against the impacts of climate change, which includes assessing health vulnerability and developing health plans.
The Director General of the INS, Eduardo Samo Gudo, pointed out that Mozambique is one of the countries most affected by extreme weather events, a fact that suggests that the conference should be held annually, judging by the speed of the dynamics and transformations due to climate change.
For his part, the CDC Africa representative advocated collaboration, including the creation of multi-sector strategies and solutions to deal with the impact of climate change in the country.
It should be noted that this is the second time the country has hosted a conference on the impact of climate change. The first was in 2017, in the city of Maputo.
