Climate and health in Africa: research and policy needs

Climate variability and change can have both direct and indirect influences on human health. In Africa, risks of malnutrition, malaria and diarrhoeal disease are likely to increase as temperatures increase and rainfall becomes more variable (USAID, 2017). Other climate risks include the direct impacts of extreme weather events, UV-related cancers and diseases, heat stress, respiratory disorders related to air quality and access to clean water, with increased transmission of water, vector and food-borne diseases all expected to increase in the future (ACPC, 2011; African Development Bank 2012). This Briefing Note highlights the key health areas on which climate has an impact in Africa, in order to help shape the research and policy agenda

Food Security: Let them Eat Information

Insufficient information to predict famine was widely seen to be a central reason for the failure of national governments and the international donor community to prevent famines in Africa in the mid 1980s. Since then, there have been substantial improvements in the development of purpose-built information systems to predict famine. Many new famine early warning systems (EWS) have been set up, but the goal of famine prevention remains elusive. At least in the Sahel and Horn of Africa, the information now provided is not being used adequately to trigger timely and appropriate response.European Research Council (ERC

Using the Implementation Centric Evolving Climate Change Adaptation Process to bridge the gap between policy and action

With climate impacts increasing in both frequency and intensity and unprecedented climate events having devastating results, the need for timely policy and action to support adaption is not in doubt. However, the gap between policy and action leaves many communities exposed to extreme events and vulnerable to loss of life and livelihoods. This is partly due to the difficulty policymakers face when confronted by climate projections with their inherent uncertainties. Competing sectoral interests and a lack of resources often compound such challenges. To address these issues, the Implementation Centric Evolving Climate Change Adaptation Process (ICECCAP) encases the climate risk assessment in an enabling framework to track resource, knowledge and regulatory needs. This process was applied as part of a UNEP project to support the National Adaptation Plan in Pakistan. A range of climate storylines, describing plausible climate futures and their potential environmental and socio-economic impacts, were developed and discussed with local stakeholders, including policy makers from across levels of governance. The process allowed us to translate complex physical science into narratives that could be communicated clearly to non-technical national stakeholders, forming a basis for subsequent negotiation and decision-making at a local level to address multiple risks and respond to adaptation needs at this finer resolution. This reflects our aim, as part of the My Climate Risk network, to amalgamate bottom-up climate risk assessment with climate projection data that remains meaningful at a local scale. We show how the integration of scientific research and local expert stakeholder views can promote buy-in to adaptation planning. Grounded in a systemic and comprehensive understanding of potential impacts of climate change, this process has implications across socio-economic, environmental and governance spheres

Heatwaves: an invisible risk in UK policy and research

In 2019, a heatwave – an unusual extended period of hot weather – broke the UK’s highest recorded temperature of 38.7 °C set in 2003. Of concern is that for summer 2019, this resulted in 892 excess deaths. With the intensity and frequency of UK heatwaves projected to increase, and summer temperatures predicted to be 5 °C hotter by 2070, urgent action is needed to prepare for, and adapt to, the changes now and to come. Yet it remains unclear what actions are needed and by whom. In response, a systematic literature review of UK heatwaves peer-reviewed publications, inclusive of keyword criteria (total papers returned = 183), was conducted to understand what lessons have been learnt and what needs to happen next. Our research shows that heatwaves remain largely an invisible risk in the UK. Communication over what UK residents should do, the support needed to make changes, and their capacity to enact those changes, is often lacking. In turn, there is an inherent bias where research focuses too narrowly on the health and building sectors over other critical sectors, such as agriculture. An increased amount of action and leadership is therefore necessary from the UK government to address this

Continuing evolution of H6N2 influenza a virus in South African chickens and the implications for diagnosis and control

BACKGROUND : The threat of poultry-origin H6 avian influenza viruses to human health emphasizes the importance of monitoring their evolution. South Africa’s H6N2 epidemic in chickens began in 2001 and two co-circulating antigenic sub-lineages of H6N2 could be distinguished from the outset. The true incidence and prevalence of H6N2 in the country has been difficult to determine, partly due to the continued use of an inactivated whole virus H6N2 vaccine and the inability to distinguish vaccinated from non-vaccinated birds on serology tests. In the present study, the complete genomes of 12 H6N2 viruses isolated from various farming systems between September 2015 and February 2019 in three major chicken-producing regions were analysed and a serological experiment was used to demonstrate the effects of antigenic mismatch in diagnostic tests. RESULTS : Genetic drift in H6N2 continued and antigenic diversity in sub-lineage I is increasing; no sub-lineage II viruses were detected. Reassortment patterns indicated epidemiological connections between provinces as well as different farming systems, but there was no reassortment with wild bird or ostrich influenza viruses. The sequence mismatch between the official antigens used for routine hemagglutination inhibition (HI) testing and circulating field strains has increased steadily, and we demonstrated that H6N2 field infections are likely to be missed. More concerning, sublineage I H6N2 viruses acquired three of the nine HA mutations associated with human receptor-binding preference (A13S, V187D and A193N) since 2002. Most sub-lineage I viruses isolated since 2015 acquired the K702R mutation in PB2 associated with the ability to infect humans, whereas prior to 2015 most viruses in sub-lineages I and II contained the avian lysine marker. All strains had an unusual HA0 motif of PQVETRGIF or PQVGTRGIF. CONCLUSIONS : The H6N2 viruses in South African chickens are mutating and reassorting amongst themselves but have remained a genetically pure lineage since they emerged more than 18 years ago. Greater efforts must be made by government and industry in the continuous isolation and characterization of field strains for use as HI antigens, new vaccine seed strains and to monitor the zoonotic threat of H6N2 viruses.Additional file 1: Table S1a. Percentage nucleotide sequence identity in the HA genes of sub-lineage I viruses isolated since 2015.Additional file 2: Table S1b. Percentage amino sequence identity in the HA proteins of all sub-lineage I viruses.Additional file 3: Table S1c. Amino acid between-group distances.Additional file 4: Figure S1. Alignment of the hemagglutinin protein sequences of South African H6N2 isolates from chickens.Additional file 5: Table S2. Predicted glycosylation patterns in the surface glycoproteins of H6N2 influenza viruses isolated since 2015.Additional file 6: Figure S2. Alignment of the neuraminidase protein sequences of South African H6N2 isolates from chickens.Additional file 7: Figure S3. Alignment of the polymerase B2 (PB2) protein sequences of South African H6N2 isolates from chickens.This work was supported by the South African Department of Science and Technology /National Research Foundation’s South African Research Chair Initiative under grant No. 114612.The South African Department of Science and Technology /National Research Foundation’s South African Research Chair Initiative.https://bmcvetres.biomedcentral.comam2020Production Animal Studie

The utility of impact data in flood forecast verification for anticipatory actions: case studies from Uganda and Kenya

Skilful flood forecasts have the potential to inform preparedness actions across scales, from smallholder farmers through to humanitarian actors, but require verification first to ensure such early warning information is robust. However, verification efforts in data-scarce regions are limited to only a few sparse locations at pre-existing river gauges. Hence, alternative data sources are urgently needed to enhance flood forecast verification to better guide preparedness actions. In this study, we assess the usefulness of less conventional data such as flood impact data for verifying flood forecasts compared with river-gauge observations in Uganda and Kenya. The flood impact data contains semi-quantitative and qualitative information on the location and number of reported flood events derived from five different data repositories (Dartmouth Flood Observatory, DesInventar, Emergency Events Database, GHB, and local) over the 2007–2018 period. In addition, river-gauge observations from stations located within the affected districts and counties are used as a reference for verification of flood forecasts from the Global Flood Awareness System. Our results reveal both the potential and the challenges of using impact data to improve flood forecast verification in data-scarce regions. From these, we provide a set of recommendations for using impact data to support anticipatory action planning

Building resilience through improving groundwater management for sustainable agricultural intensification in African Sahel

Background: This paper examines the role of improved groundwater access and management in providing opportunities for sustainable agricultural intensification and building the resilience of community farmers in Southern Burkina Faso. The findings contribute to current debates about pathways of commercialisation and adaptation in the African Sahel, especially those seeking to find responses to managing the impacts of climate change and delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals. Methods: This paper presents data that has been thematically analysed based on the Framework for Sustainable Intensification developed by Pretty and Bharucha (Ann Bot 114:1571–1596, 2014). The data used includes 144 Vulnerability Baseline Assessments which were conducted at the start of the project with the four target Burkinabe communities (Kado, Poa, Tomo, and Zhilivele), and 33 monitoring interviews and vulnerability assessments from the Burkinabe communities of Poa and Tomo to track progress and behaviour change resulting from the BRAVE project interventions. Results: The data analysis showed that Burkinabe communities are already making some use of groundwater to support their agricultural livelihoods; most do this through accessing groundwater from shallow wells. It was also shown that there were improvements in the four main themes Identified by the Sustainable Intensification Framework. These included improved information sharing through increased peer-to-peer learning and improvements in confidence levels; improved social cohesion through reduction in community conflict over water resource management; asset improvements shown by tangible improvement of yields; and increased awareness exemplified by behaviour change. Conclusions: Through using the Sustainable Intensification framework, this paper argues that such an approach improves essential aspects of resilience building such as information sharing, improved local governance and increased social capital and income. We argue that such changes provide essential pathways to reducing vulnerability and increasing resilience of at-risk communities in the Sahel, but that national policy alignment and investment is essential for long term change and sustainability

Identifying the barriers and opportunities in the provision and use of weather and climate information for flood risk preparedness: the case of Katakwi District, Uganda

The provision of weather and climate information (WCI) can help the most at-risk communities cope and adapt to the impacts of extreme events. While significant progress has been made in ensuring improved availability of WCI, there remain obstacles that hinder the accessibility and use of this information for adaptation planning. Attention has now focused on the ‘usability gap’ to ensure useful and usable WCI is used to inform practice. Less attention has however been directed on barriers to active production and use of WCI. In this study, we combine two frameworks to present a more coordinated institutional response that would be required to ensure a better flow of information from the information providers to the users and vice versa. Focusing on Uganda, a bottom-up approach is used to identify the barriers and opportunities in the production/provision and use of WCI for flood risk preparedness. First, a use-case is developed for Katakwi District where smallholder farming communities have recorded their coping practices and barriers to the use of WCI in practice. Second, online interviews with practitioners from disaster management institutions are used to identify the barriers to the production and provision of WCI to the local farming communities. Findings show that for providers, barriers such as accessibility and completeness of data hinder the production of useful WCI. In situations where useful information is available, technical language used in the format and timeliness in dissemination hinder usability by local farmers. Useful and usable WCI is not used in practice due to the social-economic capacity of the communities e.g., lack of access to improved seeds. Our study highlights the importance of a more coordinated response that would ensure a shift of focus from only the users to a more inclusive approach where even the data and information needs of the providers are considered to improve disaster risk management. While such considerations alone might not be enough to ensure effective use of WCI at the local level, we argue that understanding these data and information gaps across the provider-user landscapes can help in shaping disaster management activities at both the national and local level