JEDDAH, 8 April 2008 — In the present era of global warming and climate change, the theme of this year’s World Health Day, which was observed yesterday, was “Protecting Health Despite Climate Change.”
Dr. Tawfik Khoja, director general of the Executive Board of the Council of Health Ministers of GCC states, said, “The world is witnessing climate changes that have negative effects on the environment and people’s health.”
According to him, the earth’s temperature “is rising and the rising is accelerating. Some human activities are at least partially responsible for the phenomenon. If things continue this way, humanity will face more diseases and deaths related to natural disasters, heat waves, and contagious diseases from food and water as well as more early deaths.”
On the other hand, Dr. Khaled Mirghalani, spokesman for the Ministry of Health, said that the ministry was distributing brochures and pamphlets to raise awareness about the problem. He also said that there were no statistics regarding health problems caused by climate change.
“Changes to climate are caused by human activities including cutting trees and the excessive usage of electricity and cars,” said Dr. Muneera Balahmar, head of the heath education department at the primary health care directorate. She gave the Girls’ College of Education as an example, saying that there were 8,000 students there which translates into thousands of cars in the area every day. Every car of course contributes to air pollution. “If the students used buses, the pollution would be much less. We know that CO2 emissions from motor vehicles contribute to global warming,” Balahmar said.
By focusing on climate change while marking the World Health Day yesterday, the World Health Organization aimed to raise public understanding of health consequences of global warming and generate effective actions by local communities, organizations and governments to reduce its impact on public health.
