UN Warns Forecast Super El Nino Could Intensify Global Health Risks

The United Nations has warned that an El Nino expected to be the most intense on record could become a significant threat to global health. The climate pattern is associated with warmer Pacific Ocean surface temperatures and can bring higher temperatures, severe drought and extensive flooding. Its effects are already being felt from Central America to Indonesia, according to the supplied report.

The World Health Organization said heavy rainfall could create conditions favourable to cholera and to mosquitoes that transmit malaria, chikungunya and dengue fever. Teresa Zakaria, head of the WHO unit responsible for risk reduction, humanitarian operations and climate change, described El Nino as a public-health threat and a risk multiplier. Zakaria said the worst effects would occur where climate shocks coincide with weak health systems, limited healthcare access, food insecurity, displacement and humanitarian crises.

She urged countries to act before the risks develop into a wider emergency. The World Meteorological Organization said earlier in September that the current event was forecast to be the strongest since comparable records began four decades ago. Its effects on global weather could continue into 2027.

El Nino is not caused by climate change, but scientists expect it to add heat and intensify extremes on an already warming planet. Armel Castellan of the WHO-WMO Climate and Health Joint Programme said the combination of the event with already record-breaking temperatures made this episode unusual.