Children Are Endangered To Infectious Diseases Due To Climate Change: Study

Children are becoming vulnerable to infectious diseases due to climate change, a new study published in the journal ScienceDirect showed. The research conducted by the scholars of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) states that the climate parameters accounted for 9 to 18 per cent of the total disease cases among children.

The study aimed to find the association between human-made activities and infectious diseases among children under 16-years-of-age in Varanasi, India Today reported. Around 461 children were surveyed for the study.

Factors Affecting Child Health

High temperatures and humidity were found to be leading reasons for contagious diseases. Children also got diarrhoea and skin-disease cases by 3.97 per cent and 3.94 per cent, respectively, due to a temperature rise.

Temperature, humidity, rainfall, solar radiation, and wind speed were some of the factors undertaken for the study, IT reported. All these parameters were associated with diseases related to skin, vector-borne, respiratory, gastrointestinal, etc.

"Upper respiratory tract infection (mostly cold and flu) and gastrointestinal infections (mainly diarrhoea) constitute 78 per cent of the disease burden. Socio-economic conditions and child anthropometry modified the climate-disease association with a high proportion of children found suffering from stunting, wasting, and underweight conditions," IT quoted the ministry of science and technology.

Strict Measures To Be Taken

The ministry said the research has come as an awakening and provides a background for more epidemiological studies.

The study comes as a significant challenge to India's progress in the healthcare sector and how children from lower-income families bore more burden. It also compels the government and policymakers to pay more attention to practical measures for child health.

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