Floods that hit West Africa recently are yet another example of the link between the environment, food security and health. Now the World Health Organisation (WHO) is warning of a spread of water-borne cholera, malaria and other diseases.
Under these circumstances, and as the world faces more environmental changes, poverty has also emerged as a major threat to public health, especially in underdeveloped and developing countries. Unfortunately, it isn't receiving much attention.
WHAT IT MEANS
 Political commitment to action is necessary
Pollution in urban African areas is rising
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In Australia in the 1980s, bush fires increased the number of people with respiratory diseases, while in Somalia a vitamin C deficiency left children with bleeding gums. In both countries droughts were the root cause. Water shortages also mean it's difficult to grow plants and maintain animals, which in turn threatens food security.
In 2000, the UN said environmental "changes on an unprecedented scale" would affect human health, a scenario that would be apparent "during the coming decades". Environmental changes, the UN reported later, led to diseases that killed 2,4m people in 2002 alone. The situation is not improving.
It is against this background that an interministerial conference on health and the environment got underway in West Africa's Gabon this week. The link between food security and the environment has been a focal point at the conference.
Delegates were expected to also tackle malaria - a disease to which African governments have responded haphazardly, leading to scores of preventable deaths.
Malaria accounts for at least a third of public health budgets in sub-Saharan Africa. An alarming 90% of the malaria fatalities (1m/year) happen in Africa.
The UN says malaria stifles economic growth and costs an already poverty stricken Africa at least US$12bn/year in "lost GDP". What's puzzling is why this vector-borne disease remains such a threat as, in the words of the UN, "malaria could be controlled for a fraction of that sum".
Now, after all the talking at this week's conference, ministers and policy makers should leave Gabon with practical solutions to stem the tide or spell a bleak future. Purified water, proper sanitation and providing insecticide treated nets (as part of the anti-malaria plan) will ameliorate the situation. But it has to be done now, says Dr Maria Neira, director of environment & public health at the Geneva-based WHO.
"We're repeating the same messages to governments, hopefully it will pay off one of these days," says Neira.
"We have to create the linkages between health and the environment. Presently, 13m of the (annual) deaths in the world are associated with environmental changes. These deaths can be prevented."
She also urges governments to accelerate the provision of clean water to their countries.
"Europe had unsafe water after World War 2 and it invested heavily on water provision and there was a decline (in related diseases). Africa can do the same. It's time for feasible interventions. We need to get political support if we're going to make this work," Neira says.
Dr Sibusiso Nsele agrees. The SA medical specialist says in poor areas, malnutrition exacerbates the problem.
Added to this are social ills such as alcoholism and drug abuse, which negatively affect the health of the nation and slows down development.
