Recent heavy rains and flooding in West and Central Africa show that climate change is another thumb on a scale already crushed by war and disease.
new research Extreme weather events that killed more than 1,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands in Sudan, Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger last month have been made worse by climate change, suggesting it has caused already devastating cholera outbreaks to spread faster.
One result from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) study, which compared recent weather to weather patterns in the world without human-caused climate change, suggested that Sudan could expect a weather event like this every three years.
Clair Barnes, a statistician at WWA and a researcher at Imperial College London, explained: “Most climate models we have looked at indicate a tendency for more extreme rainfall events to occur in this region.”
Experts say repeated blows from these storms not only undermine recovery prospects, but also deepen existing vulnerabilities within communities.
“What you will see is that people’s ability to respond to these floods is very low,” said Joyce Kimutai, co-author of the WWA study and a research fellow at Imperial College’s Center for Environmental Policy. “This is especially true if flooding occurs frequently,” he said. London.
cholera patient explosion
More intense rains and flooding increase the spread of water-borne diseases such as cholera. More than 350 people in Nigeria have died from the disease this year, including 150 last month. According to the World Health Organization. The country was already dealing with an outbreak in early June.
Sudan, gripped by warring military factions, has reported more than 15,000 cases and more than 400 deaths in the past month.
Medical staff wear protective clothing at a hospital treating cholera patients in the Red Sea region of Sudan. (AFP via Getty Images)
“Let’s call this a disease of poverty,” said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist at Toronto General Hospital, adding that displacement due to conflict and lack of access to good sanitation and clean water infrastructure are all contributing factors. “It’s the perfect setting for a waterborne outbreak.”
Cholera causes death through rapid dehydration through profuse diarrhea. Some people may recover by drinking adequate fluids, but others may require intravenous fluids or antibiotics. There is also an oral vaccine, but WHO says global stocks are now depleted.
Bogoch attributes this to the overwhelming global demand over the past few years. He said it was necessary to acknowledge that climate change would make the situation worse.
Oral cholera vaccines sit in a cooler during the 2022 cholera vaccination campaign in Haiti. (Odeline Joseph/AP)
“If we have more outbreaks and those outbreaks grow, we need more vaccines to deploy,” Bogoch said.
How often do rains and floods occur?
WWA research has shown that heavy rains that last for months are common in Sudan. These extreme weather events are expected to occur every three years in today’s climate, and are expected to become 10% heavier due to climate change.
Moreover, the rainfall this year in Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad, along with Sudan, was similar to the rainfall the region experienced in 2022. WWA studied previous rainfall. They found that climate change has made rain 5 to 20 percent heavier.
The researchers did not conduct new attribution analyzes for the four countries except Sudan because the results would be similar to the 2022 study. They said rain and flooding were expected in the region because previous research had found that similar heavy rainfall would occur on average every five to 10 years in today’s climate.
“If we continue to burn fossil fuels, the situation is only going to get worse,” Barnes told reporters at a press briefing. The study’s estimates are based on a current climate that is, on average, 1.3 degrees warmer than before industrialization.
“This type of heavy rainfall could become an annual occurrence once we reach 2 degrees, which is expected to happen as early as the 2050s,” Barnes warned.
Can the country recover?
If climate disasters occur more frequently, countries will lose the time they need to recover before the next disaster occurs.
“In Nigeria, many of the hardest-hit areas have not yet fully recovered from the 2022 floods,” said Maja Vahlberg, WWA team member and Red Cross and Red Crescent technical advisor. “This shows a cyclical pattern of vulnerability.” .
The aftermath of a flood that occurred in the Mesawi region near Meroe in northern Sudan last August. (AFP via Getty Images)
To further complicate matters, the right solutions may not currently exist in these countries. One example is basic funding to rebuild homes after disasters, says Jola Ajibade, who studies climate risks and vulnerable populations at Emory University.
“There is certainly no insurance for people living in informal settlements who are most affected by floods and storms,” Ajibade said, suggesting microinsurance plans and ways to prepare for the climate. , a malleable material.
But she warns that rebuilding without consultation at all stages could lead to further displacement.
“The traditional argument is, ‘Let’s get out of people’s way, let’s redesign this place and make it livable and safe,’” Ajibade said, explaining that people often move out and cannot afford to return to newly rebuilt communities. .
“This has become a form of climate gentrification.”
Another challenge on the healthcare front is the lack of preparedness to respond to public health emergencies in the first place in low-income or conflict-affected areas where these outbreaks occur.
Limited resources make it increasingly important to understand how and when future outbreaks will develop so that money and help can get to where it matters most.
Caroline Wagner, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at McGill University, studies the transmission pathways of various diseases, particularly how climate change affects how diseases spread.
“If we want to prepare for diseases like cholera in the future, we need to figure them out,” she said.
“So let’s say we know that the extent of dengue fever, Zika virus, malaria is going to increase in a certain way. I think then we need to make sure that the new areas where these diseases are emerging have the right public health infrastructure in place to manage them. Or invest in hospital and health care infrastructure that is more robust against extreme flooding or extreme weather events.”
