Climate change is the biggest human health risk, says Africa’s public health agency

Climate change is the biggest threat to human health in Africa and the rest of the world, the head of the continent's public health agency said. Mitigating that risk was top of his agenda, Jean Kaseya, the director general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told Reuters as he headed to the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, which begins on Thursday. The measures needed, Kaseya said, would include funding to help countries in Africa trying to contain outbreaks of disease. In an online interview, he said the threat of "a climate change-related disease becoming a pandemic and coming from Africa" was what kept him awake at night. Since the start of this year, Kaseya said Africa has tackled 158 disease outbreaks. "Each outbreak, if not well managed, can become a pandemic," he said. This year's climate talks for the first time will include a health day on Dec. 3, which Kaseya and global health figures from around the world are expected to use to raise awareness of the link between climate change and health.