“Tuberculosis Risk Factors Exacerbated by Climate Change: Experts Call for Urgent Action”

Malnutrition, overpopulation, poverty and the rise of various infectious diseases are all risk factors for tuberculosis (TB) that are exacerbated by climate change. Many countries with high TB ​​prevalence, such as Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kenya and Peru, also suffer from the extreme weather conditions associated with a warmer world.

Yet TB, a deadly infectious disease that claimed 1.6 million lives by 2021, is rarely discussed in relation to climate change. Experts believe this should change as the climate crisis accelerates.

displaced persons

The latest report from the UN climate panel (IPCC) warns of the health effects of global warming, including an increasing spread of infectious diseases. Other research already shows how changes in climate have exacerbated the risks of hundreds of infectious diseases worldwide.

Yet the link to TB is still all too often overlooked by policymakers, experts say. “The potential impact of climate change on TB is less direct than for some other infectious diseases,” said Mohammed Yassin, medical expert at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

He points out that climate-related natural disasters, or simply the fact that certain places on Earth are becoming too hot to be habitable, are leading to massive migration flows. This creates the ideal conditions for the spread of TB.

“Mass displacement can lead to overcrowding and poor living conditions for displaced people. If some of those people already have symptoms of TB, the disease is more likely to spread. There are also people who live under stress and are malnourished, which again increases the risk of spreading TB,” says Yassin.

Displaced persons also have less access to healthcare – a permanent problem for people with TB. They have to undergo daily treatment. Interruptions in treatment mean that they remain contagious longer and are at risk of developing drug-resistant TB. The treatment of drug-resistant TB is much more difficult and expensive.

Displaced people also often end up in overcrowded areas where TB can spread quickly in the absence of adequate screening procedures.

Droughts and floods

However, displacement is by no means the only problem. Both extreme drought and flooding can affect food security, destroying crops and killing livestock lead to malnutrition. These are all known risk factors for TB. In some parts of the world, the impact of extreme weather events on health, and specifically TB, is already visible.

Somalia is in the throes of a severe drought after five consecutive failed rainy seasons, something the UN has not seen for four decades, according to the UN. Five million people face acute food shortages and nearly two million children are at risk of malnutrition. At the same time, TB is also on the rise and aid organizations are doing everything they can to provide medical services for thousands of TB patients in camps for internally displaced persons.

In Pakistan, last year’s devastating floods not only brought diseases such as malaria and dengue. They also disrupted life-saving vaccination programs, including those for TB. “The effect of flooding on TB usually only becomes visible later, but of course it has an immediate effect by interfering with treatment, which can lead to problems such as drug-resistant TB,” says Yassin.

New treatments

TB experts are calling for more attention to the problem: consideration should be given to whether current TB programs are still adequate in an increasingly warmer world. For example, the NGO TB Alliance recently developed the new treatment program Bpal with a much shorter treatment time and fewer of the sometimes very severe side effects of other medicines.

The treatment with just a few pills a day has been praised by patients and doctors for the relative ease with which it can be administered. It was recently introduced on a large scale in Ukraine, for the many millions of people displaced there by the Russian invasion.

“We are trying to find solutions to make treatment safer and shorter so that some of the negative effects of climate change on TB, such as displacement, can be mitigated,” said Marie Beumont, who leads the TB Alliance medical division. Yassin says investment in health systems – especially in low-income countries – is also critical.

“We learned from covid that health systems can’t handle a pandemic and TB is actually a pandemic. It is very important that countries think about strengthening their health systems and making them more resilient. Investments need to be made now to prepare the systems for a potential pandemic of TB caused by climate change,” said Yassin.

Time is running out

Whatever efforts are made to address the effect of climate change on the disease, it must happen now, says Yassin. “We should not wait for climate change to fuel the spread of TB to unsustainable levels before we act. We must act now and tackle TB to prevent more deaths and disabilities,” said the epidemiologist.

Bron: Tuberculosis Risk Factors Exacerbated by Climate Change

Note: