Climate impact on health: India’s heat-related deaths went up by 55% – The Lancet data

Growing reliance on fossil fuels have increased heat deaths, hunger, heat-related illnesses and infectious diseases, according to a new study.Some 98 million more people, across the world, reported moderate to severe food insecurity, in 2020, than the average in 1981-2010, noted the study published by The Lancet, a journal, on October 25, 2022. Extreme weather events were devastating for countries across the world.

The Lancet came out with its global annual countdown on the health impacts of climate change, less than a fortnight ahead of the 27th Conference of Parties (CoP 27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The findings of the report are grim.Vulnerable populations were exposed to 3.7 billion more heatwave days, in 2021 than annually in 1986–2005, the report noted. Heat-related deaths increased by 68 percent between 2000–2004 and 2017–2021.

The number of months, suitable for malaria transmission, increased by 31.3 percent, and and 13·8 percent in the highland areas of the Americas, and the highland areas of Africa from 1951–60 to 2012–21 respectively. The likelihood of dengue transmission rose by 12 percent, between 1951–60 and 2012–21.An India-specific factsheet, derived from data in The Lancet report but not a part of the document itself, has significant findings.

It found that heat-related deaths increased by 55 percent between 2000-2004 and 2017-2021.Some 167.2 billion potential labour hours were lost due to heat exposure. It amounts to an equivalent economic loss of 5.4 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product. The number of months, suitable for dengue transmission by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, rose to 5.6 months each year — 1.69 percent increase, between 1951-1960 and 2012-2021.Infants went through 0.9 more heatwave days per year, while adults, over 65, experienced 3.7 more days per person compared to 1986, the factsheet noted.

“Countries and companies continue to make choices that threaten the health and survival of people in every part of the world,” the report noted in its call to action.