Zmena klímy – možný dopad (nielen) na obyvateľstvo - Prohuman

CC, food security, AIDS, health in general and the links between these and the
MDGs is key to breaking out of this “either or” myopia.
Experts fear climate change
will slow global fight against HIV/AIDS epidemic
Despite progress in slowing the global HIV epidemic, climate disruptions threaten
to undermine the gains in fighting this disease as parched land, wilted crops and
ethnic tensions converge in some parts of the world. According to the Joint UN
Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), 34.2 million people around the world were infected
with the disease in 2011, the most recent data available. Last year, the virus
led to 1.7 million deaths. Though the number of afflicted people is rising, the rate of
new infections is slowing down and infected people are living longer, in part due to
better education and more affordable treatments reaching those who need it. While
HIV still has no cure or vaccine, certain drugs can help manage the disease so that
infected people can live more productive lives, and can help reduce transmission.
However, some of this progress may be lost as the planet changes, with extreme
weather events and higher average temperatures cutting food security, creating refugee
crises as people flee stricken regions and spread the disease. In 2009, Butler
co-authored a UNAIDS paper on the links between climate change and the virus.
“Populations with currently high rates of HIV are the most vulnerable to a worsening
or prolongation of the epidemic due to (climate change),” said the report. “This places
the people of (sub-Saharan Africa) at the greatest risk… though outside Africa
populations in north east India and New Guinea may also be significantly impacted.”
The relationship between climate change and HIV is a little tricky. The human
immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, targets the body‘s cellular defence systems and
causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It does not spread directly
through weather-related trends, like the way flooding leads to cholera illnesses
or the way West Nile virus infections correlate with higher temperatures. Rather,
HIV spreads mainly through risky behaviours like unprotected sex and intravenous
drug use, as well as from mother to child and through blood transfusions.
Migration, poverty and food scarcity can spread the disease
These behaviours can change as populations merge and disband, driven by fighting
over increasingly scarce water and arable land. As civil institutions break
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