Climate Change Threatens Children's Health, Infectious Diseases Spread Further

The Central Board of the Indonesian Paediatric Society (PP IDAI) has stated that climate change is linked to infectious diseases in children. Hikari Ambara Sjakti from the IDAI General Secretariat emphasised that children are a particularly vulnerable group and represent the nation’s future generation. “Children are a very special group because they are the seeds of the future generation. They are also an age group that is vulnerable to various external influences, including the impacts of climate change, which is now a very pressing and important issue,” Hikari said during an online discussion on Tuesday (9/6).

He expressed hope that the public would gain a better understanding and adopt a shared attitude towards creating a healthy environment for Indonesian children, particularly concerning infectious diseases. Meanwhile, Riyadi, a member of the IDAI’s Environmental Health and Climate Change Task Force, explained that climate change causes health problems. He cited examples such as excessive exposure to extreme heat and poor air quality, which lead to health disorders ranging from heat-related illnesses and smoke exposure complications to diseases carried by animals that would not normally be present. “All of this causes problems if our health system is unable to adapt, and if there is no leadership that understands this issue and makes efforts to prevent climate change from causing more severe effects,” he said.

Climate change could cause diseases traditionally found only in tropical countries to spread to non-tropical nations. For instance, in Scandinavian countries where temperatures are very cold and the mosquito vectors carrying dengue fever were previously non-existent, they are now appearing because rising temperatures have created a comfortable environment for the mosquitoes to grow and develop.