Climate change impacts, including extreme weather, increased frequency and intensity of natural disasters such as typhoon and floods, will threaten people’s lives and lead to serious disorders like pollution of water sources, according to Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dao Xuan Hoc.
He was addressing the International Conference on Realising Rights to Human Health and Development in Ha Noi organised by the Party Central Committee’s Commission for Popularisation and Education Affairs and Australia’s New South Wales University on last Wednesday.
It would also affect people’s health as rising temperatures facilitate the growth and development of various viruses and disease carriers, resulting in the higher incidence of infectious diseases such as malaria, dengue, diarrhoea and malnutrition.
According to the World Health Organisation and the UN, there are around 5 million people suffering from these diseases every year the world over, and 150,000 die.
In Viet Nam, the flooding caused by rains and tides in HCM City, Can Tho and Ha Noi were getting more severe with every passing day, Hoc said.
"It is expected that 8.4 million people will not have access to clean water in 2050," he added.
After Typhoon Ketsana wreaked havoc in central Viet Nam last month, the area was suffering from outbreaks of dengue, pneumonia and pink eye, Minister of Health Nguyen Quoc Trieu said.
According to the Eye Department of the Quang Ngai Province’s General Hospital, the incidence of conjunctivitis (pink eye) has risen sharply. It is receiving 150-160 patients these days, well above the previous number of 50-60. Half of the new patients are having the pink eye infection.
This year, more than 72,000 people have been hospitalised because of dengue fever, an increase of 7.1 per cent in comparison with last year. Provinces and cities with huge number of dengue patients are Ha Noi, Da Nang, Binh Dinh, Phu Yen, Kien Giang, Tra Vinh and HCM City.
Besides, climate change would cause the country to loose 2 million hectares of arable land if timely measures are not taken, according to Hoc.
A sea level rise of up to one metre would overwhelm the low-lying Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta that could be almost completely inundated during the annual flooding seasons.
The delta would also be the worst affected region during the dry season with 70 per cent of its land suffering from salination.
Around 53,000ha of land in coastal zones in the central region would also be submerged, which would mean the loss of 2 million hectares of crop land, Ngoc said.
According to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), both agriculture and natural ecosystems would suffer from increased minimum temperatures, impacting growing periods, crop calendars and crop distribution; and increasing pest and virus activities.
ADB experts told the conference that if the average temperature increased by one degree Centigrade, rice yield would decrease by 10 per cent. Inundation, the resulting loss of land and saline water intrusion in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta, one of the country’s most important agriculture areas, would pose serious threats to farmers, as well as rice exports.
"Since Viet Nam is the second largest exporter of rice in the world, this would impact national and international food security," Ngoc said.
Minister Trieu said the Government was implementing effective solutions to prevent the spread of diseases. These include improving the quality of health examination and treatment, increasing public awareness, and ensuring early forecast of diseases that threaten community health.
The four-day conference, which aimed to seek ways to confront escalating health and humanitarian problems threatening the world’s most vulnerable people, also touched upon other substantive topics, including HIV/AIDS and other public health threats, maternal and child health and economic globalisation.
By addressing such barriers to the right to health and development, the conference is expected to increase the capacity to confront the challenges, according Hoang Van Nghia from the Vietnamese Institute for Human Rights.
The report by the conference suggested that governments fully address these barriers, attracting the participation of the community in seeking solutions and fostering inter-sector dialogue to improve the quality of healthcare tasks.
Ensuring the strict implementation of policies in tackling health, development and human rights is also encouraged, as well as improving the capacity of the governments in launching these policies.