Climate change, health effects to be included in medical syllabus soon

The National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) is working with various medical councils to introduce concepts related to climate change and its health effects in the medical syllabus across the country. NCDC has roped in National Medical Council, dental council, Ayush, nursing council, pharmacy council and others for this purpose.

While health risks due to climate change are a reality of our time, in a significant move, the medical courses will soon cover the health effects of climate change. The National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) is working with various medical councils to introduce related concepts in the medical courses such as rising heat and damaging air quality and their effects on medical education and the training of medical personnel in India.

NCDC has roped in National Medical Council, dental council, Ayush, nursing council, pharmacy council and others for this purpose. The medical schools will also teach students about environmental health.

"Today, a patient is asked if he smokes or consumes alcohol. There is nothing to relate his ill-health to external environmental factors. Our goal is to address the reality that our altering climatic conditions are affecting people's health, and our medical professionals need to recognise this," said an officer from NCDC's Centre for Environmental and Occupational Health, Climate Change and Health, as reported by Times of India.

"Changes in climate conditions and, possibly, weather variability would affect human health through several processes, many mediated by disturbances of ecological systems. More readily foreseen effects (resulting from thermal stresses and changed patterns of air pollution) will probably have less impact than will those resulting from complex changes in ecological infrastructure (altered patterns of infectious disease, agricultural production, coastal ecology, etc)," reports research article by ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.

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