Climate Change Affecting Human Health

WHO Director General Dr Margaret Chan said yesterday, World Health Day, that climate change was already affecting human health and was giving "a glimpse of the challenges public health will have to confront on a large scale".

Many human diseases are climate sensitive, and warming up the Earth will increase the numbers of people exposed to diseases that today kill millions. These include malnutrition (kills over 3.5 million people a year), diarrhoeal diseases (kill over 1.8 million), and malaria (kills nearly 1 million).