Disease outbreaks increasing
Along with droughts and floods, deforestation, earthquakes and extreme temperatures, climate-sensitive disease outbreaks continue to rise. Mass migration, urbanisation, deforestation and continued encroachment by humans into animal habitats means that diseases can spread quickly across borders and around the globe. Climate change has pushed mosquitoes that spread malaria into higher elevations, spelling trouble for the spread of infectious diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, chikungunya and dengue. Climate disasters are increasing the risk of waterborne diseases, including diarrhoea caused by cholera and typhoid. Also, climate change exacerbates antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which could result in 10 million annual deaths globally by 2050.
Vaccine Alliance steps up response
Marginalised communities in fragile and conflict settings are often disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change. In 2022, Gavi launched the Zero-Dose Immunization Programme (ZIP) across 11 countries in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel to reach children in displaced communities, and fragile and conflict settings, with adaptive and responsive immunisation service delivery models to help build their health resilience – including against the impacts of climate change. Meanwhile, in Pakistan, in response to the devastating 2022 floods, Gavi’s Fragility, Emergency and Displaced Populations (FED) Policy was mobilised to provide surge support, including both additional district-level surveillance, as well as equipped rapid outbreak response teams – enabling provinces and partners to target responses quickly based on real-time information.
In 2022, political momentum on the climate change and global health agendas have gained more traction across policy forums. Gavi engaged in relevant dialogues, including the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, G20, UN General Assembly, Group of Friends of Human Security and UN-Energy, to promote alignment on health equity and reaching zero-dose children and missed, marginalised communities with routine immunisation. This is key to building resilience and preparedness against health emergencies, including those related to climate change.
Environmental protection: a cornerstone of resilient health systems
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the direct damage costs to health from climate change are estimated to be between US$ 2–4 billion per year by 2030. Both budget cuts and climate disasters can lead to disruption of access to electricity and essential health services. Gavi’s Health Systems and Immunisation Strengthening (HSIS) programmes are helping to “green” vaccine storage, reduce the carbon footprint of immunisation programmes and enable health facilities to be more resilient when disasters strike (e.g. gap in health care services due to lack of energy).
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