Climate change; recession hit health

Health is bearing the heaviest burden of climate change and recession.

New York, March 21: Blaming policies of various governments for the global economic downturn and climate change, the UN health agency has warned that the health sector will bear the "heaviest burden" of the crises."The world is in a mess, and much of this mess is of our own making," said Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization.

"Events such as the financial crisis and climate change are not quirks of the marketplace, or quirks of nature. They are not inevitable events in the up-and-down cycle of human history," she said asserting that they are markers of massive failure in the international systems that govern the way nations and their populations interact. "They are markers of failure at a time of unprecedented interdependence among societies, capital markets, economies, and trade." In short, they are the result of bad policies. "We have made this mess, and mistakes today are highly contagious," she said while addressing the 23rd Forum on Global Issues in Berlin on Wednesday. The WHO chief stressed that it is the health sector that will bear the heaviest burden of the global financial crisis citing great concern among countries that health may worsen as unemployment rises and spending on health drops. Bureau Report