A team from the International Climate Change Information and Research Programme and the Interdisciplinary Expert Centre on Climate Change and Health (IECCCH) at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences has conducted a study on the costs of climate change for African health systems.
The results give cause for concern. Changing disease patterns, the increasing frequency of extreme weather events and environmental degradation pose considerable challenges for healthcare systems. Malaria, for example, poses an increasing threat to Africa because mosquitoes are spreading more widely as disease vectors due to climate change. Many regions in Africa have climatic conditions that favour the development of the Anopheles mosquito vector and the Plasmodium malaria parasite is a real problem for the health sector. And Africa does not have sufficient resources to cope with the effects of climate change, which increases the continent's vulnerability.
According to Prof. Dr. Walter Leal, Head of the Research and Transfer Centre for Sustainability and Climate Impact Management at HAW Hamburg and coordinator of the study, additional resources are needed to train enough qualified healthcare professionals, provide medical equipment and build more health centres and hospitals in areas where the most vulnerable populations live. Addressing the health impacts of climate change in Africa requires a comprehensive and coordinated approach that integrates climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies into health sector planning, resource allocation and policy development.
The results of the study, entitled ‘Money for health: handling the costs of climate change to African health systems’, have just been published in the Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition and can be viewed at: https://jhpn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s41043-025-00802-9
