Briefing Paper

Susceptibility of Women and Children to Induced Infectious Disease Incidents due to Climate Change in the Niger Delta Communities

Climate change has become a major global challenge. Human health is profoundly affected by climate change and its associated impacts. Altered patterns of rainfall and increased frequency of extreme weather events have been known to influence the incidence of water-borne gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases. Climate change alters the relations between microbes, insect vectors, animal reservoirs of infectious diseases and humans and will alter the burden and distribution of infectious diseases of public health importance. The low-lying Niger delta is particularly vulnerable to the potential effects of sea level rise and in effect on infectious disease incidence. Climate change induced infectious disease vulnerability is not gender or social class neutral as the degree and effect varies with location, gender and social economic class. For women and children living in the rural areas of Niger Delta, their location, gender as well as social economic class jointly predisposes them to climate change induced infectious diseases, making them to be more susceptible than their male counterparts within their communities, women and men in other locations as well as people of different economic class.