Climate change and Global health security

Climate change poses critical challenges to human health and biodiversity. The World Health Organisation states that “climate change is a significant and emerging threat to public health and changes the way we must look at protecting vulnerable populations” (Solomon and LaRocque 2019). This thus calls for rethinking approaches in creating sustainable health care. In this sub-track, we shall discuss how to create sustainable healthcare in the face of climate challenges and how to leverage technology/innovations in creating sustainable solutions.

Recent urbanization, globalization, increased human populations, and mobility, coupled with environmental changes have significantly facilitated the migration of disease vectors to areas they had never been registered. This has led to an exponential rise in animal-to-human (zoonotic) diseases like the Ebola outbreaks in West Africa and Congo which have claimed thousands of lives and still poses challenges to the health sector. In this sub-track, we shall discuss advances in tackling the threats, from Rapid response systems, coordination, communication surveillance structures, training, and Health Information Systems.