Heatwaves: what mortality rates and what are the challenges for MSF?

On 6 June 2024, MSF France's Green Team and the Crash team welcomed Lana Whittaker, Kévin Jean and Aina Roca Barceló for a conference on heatwaves.

You can find all the speaker's presentations here: PPT presentation_0.pdf

Heat waves are among the most visible manifestations of climate change. According to the scientific network World Weather Attribution, the extreme temperatures recorded since last March in the Sahel, the Middle East and Asia (Thailand and the Philippines in particular) would not have been possible in the pre-industrial era. As the atmosphere warms, heat waves are becoming more frequent and more intense. They represent a major public health problem, of which we became aware in France in 2003. At that time, 15,000 people died as a result of the heatwave - half from pathologies directly linked to the heat, the other half from the decompensation of chronic illnesses. Since then, the adoption of individual, collective and structural measures within the framework of the “Heatwave Plan” has enabled us to drastically reduce the excess mortality linked to these phenomena.

What is the situation in the various regions of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America where MSF operates? What is the frequency and intensity of heat waves? Is their impact on health comparable to that observed in wealthy countries with continental or temperate climates? What responses have populations and authorities deployed? Who are the most vulnerable groups? And how is MSF approaching this new phenomenon at operational level?

These are the questions we tackled at a conference co-organized by MSF France's Green Team and Crash, with Cyril Bousquet, ex-MSF who now works alongside Extinction Rébellion. We were delighted to welcome:

Lana Whittaker, Lecturer in Climate Change and Health and Director of Research at Urban SHADE (Strengthening Health Access and Delivery in Extreme weather events in urban areas) at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

Kévin Jean, Epidemiologist, Junior Professor of Health and Global Change at ENS-PSL, specialist in the health assessment of energy transition scenarios.

Aina Roca Barceló, Specialist in climate adaptation support at MSF Humanitarian Action for Climate and the Environment (HACE / MSF-UK).