South Africa's Health Minister warns that antibiotic overuse, climate change, and habitat destruction are creating a 'perfect storm' for future pandemics, with experts predicting 250 000 additional climate-related deaths annually by 2050.
Climate change, antibiotic misuse, and habitat encroachment are among the factors contributing to pandemics. Pictured are debris strewn in rivers during heavy rains and flooding in Durban .The excessive use of antibiotics in health and agriculture is among the factors contributing to pandemics due to the antimicrobial resistance — where diseases that were previously curable start to resist treatment and fight back.“In health and agriculture, we are using antibiotics in a way we shouldn’t.
“So, we are not scaring people when we say that one day you will go to the hospital walking, because you are going to do a minor operation and you get an infection there and never come out, because whatever has infected you refuse to die because it has developed resistance,” the minister said. “The primary cause of AMR is the misuse or overuse of antimicrobial agents. Thus, when used in clinical settings that are not appropriate for that agent – for example, use of an antibiotic when having a viral influenza, or when a patient does not complete taking the full treatment, microorganisms then adapt to the agent, and develop resistance to that agent,” Naidoo explained.
“Instead of relocating them scientifically, they just removed the trees and everything and built houses. Where would the monkeys go? The monkeys found their way to the hospital because their area had been taken. Now this is what human beings do,” Motsoaledi said. Motsoaledi added that health ministers should be included in climate change conferences because when climate change starts affecting human beings, “it’s in health where we are going to feel it more than in any other sector”.
He added that the changing climate gives rise to non-extreme events, which generally go underreported in the media and are non-responsive by “our” authorities .
Aaron Motsoaledi Department Of Health World Health Organization Ebola Amr Chatsworth Durban Department Of Occupational And Environmental Heal University Of Kwazulu-Natal Rk Khan Rk Khan Hospital Kwazulu-Natal South Africa Southern Africa Drc E-Coli Mpumalanga
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