On the 70th World Health Day on April 7, a group of medical educational institutes near Pune launched a Centre for Climate Change and Health, to address the immediate and long-term impacts of climate change on public health. The National Round Table on Impacts of Climate Change on Public Health, arranged on the same day by medical colleges of the Maharashtra Institute of Technology-World Peace Institute, concluded that the launch of the Centre marked a turning point in humanity’s fight against climate change. Dr. Maria Neira, WHO Director, Public Health and Environment through her video message stated that climate change aff ects the social and environmental determinants of health i.e. clean air, safe drinking water, nutrient food and secure shelter. “As per WHO ’s estimate, between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected
to cause approximately 2,50, 000 additional deaths per year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress”, said Dr Neira. The Centre would be working under guidance of and in partnership with Indian Institute of Public Health (IIPH)- Ahmedabad, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)-New Delhi, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM)-Pune and National Environmental Engineering Institute (NEERI)-Nagpur.

Awareness among medical students and faculty, specialized courses on climate change and health, post-graduate scholarships and post-doctorate fellowships for studies on the subject would be the immediate activities planned by the Centre. The Centre would be located near Pune at Maharashtra Institute of Medical Education and Research. “When narration of planetary menace due to climate change is getting engulfed in continental politics and technicalities of temperature and sea level rise, the life-threatening diseases that are intensifying in their frequency and intensity are already taking their toll,” said Rajendra Shende, Chairman of TERRE Policy Centre, former Director of UNEP and a mentor behind the launch of the Centre. The Centre would deploy smart technologies like IoT, Big Data analytics and robotics for its campus and fi eld research on health and would be part of the Smart Campus Cloud Network of TERRE Policy Centre.

(Source: Rajendra Shende, May 14, 2018)