At the National World Health Day Act held on April 7 in Havana’s Metropolitan Park, the PAHO/WHO Representative in Cuba, Dr. José Moya, the joint action of the entire Cuban society against climate change, committed to the life work, state plan to face this global challenge.
PAHO/WHO representative in Cuba, Dr. Jose Moya. Photo: taken by PAHO/WHO in Cuba
Under the motto: “Our planet, our health”, this year the founding of the World Health Organization in 1948 is commemorated, to which Cuba has belonged since 1950.
Photo: Heriberto González Brito
“It’s good that this year is being celebrated in this park, where we can see trees and vegetation, where there are rivers and where the message is to take care of our planet, the water and the air we breathe ,” he told Dr. Moya, who pointed to the consequences of this transformation that the climate is experiencing worldwide, such as rising sea temperatures, heat waves, heavy rains, droughts, wildfires and other disasters that are largely caused by human activity.
In fact, they were there too, the DraC. Adianez Taboada Zamora, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment (CITMA); the DraC. Susana Suarez Tamayo, National Director of Environmental Health at the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) and Francisco Durán, National Director of Epidemiology at MINSAP, as well as road safety promoters, girls and boys from interest groups and environmental projects and health.
Photo: Heriberto González Brito
For his part, the DraC. Odalys Goicochea Cardoso, Director General for Environment at CITMA, pointed out the essential links between ecosystems and human health: “It has been talked about a lot, but there is no awareness that we are experiencing a triple environmental crisis: biodiversity loss, climate change and Environmental pollution.
DraC Odalys Goicochea Cardoso, Director General for Environment at CITMA. Photo: taken by PAHO/WHO in Cuba
As we live in the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, he emphasized that human activities have destroyed natural ecosystems, “changing the complex interrelationships that exist between all species, these are the connections that are capable of viruses and Keeping bacteria under control in their habitat. and people are less exposed to animal-borne diseases,” he said.
Goicochea Cardoso referred to a set of policies and strategies that contribute to reducing or eliminating pollution, rational use of natural resources, protection of ecosystems and combating climate change, with the aim of improving environmental quality and harming human health to avoid.
Photo: Heriberto González Brito
He highlighted the National Environmental Strategy in its 2021-2026 cycle, a document that represents the main vehicle for the implementation of Cuba’s environmental policy, identifying the nation’s priority environmental problems and establishing the strategic directions for their solution, as well as its objectives and indicators.
“Similarly, through the State Plan to Combat Climate Change, known as Life’s Work, approved in April 2017, the country has continued to work on the challenges climate change poses to island nations. In addition, it has a strategic framework for the transition to a circular economy. There is a process to update the current legal framework for environmental activities.
“This World Health Day commits us, as the Department of Science, Technology and Environment, to continue working with health authorities and all our people to redouble our powers in caring for and conserving natural resources and ecosystems.
“During the United Nations Declared Decade for Ecosystem Restoration, which runs from 2021 to 2030, restoring Cuba’s ecosystems means preventing, halting and reversing the damage to the health of our ecosystems and our people,” it said.
Latin America: Healthy Body and Planet?
The CITMA guideline mentioned data from the 6th edition of the Global Environment Outlook (GEO6) report, which warns that antibiotic resistance will become a leading cause of death by 2050 due to contamination of freshwater bodies, and that endocrine disruptors will do so affect male and female fertility and the neurological development of the infant.
He also said that urban air quality in Latin America has been deteriorating and in places where data is available, levels of particulate matter and ozone are above levels set by WHO guidelines. “This increases the susceptibility of residents to respiratory diseases, and more than 100 million residents of the region live in areas exposed to air pollution,” he specified.
He stressed that in the case of our country there is a real capacity to face these environmental problems, “based on scientific advances, the numerous results obtained in environmental science and the knowledge that the Cuban people possess, however, the existence and the tightening trade, financial and economic blockade imposed by the United States government is impeding the path to prosperous and sustainable development we aspire to.”
Photo: Heriberto González Brito
On this date, the island joins global awareness-raising efforts on the impact of the environment on human health. Around one million premature deaths are caused by avoidable environmental hazards each year.
In addition to the climate problem, there are others that affect the environment, animals, plants and people: air pollution, water wastage, inadequate sanitation, including mishandling of some dangerous chemical products.
The interrelationship between animal, human and environmental health also needs to be addressed across sectors by all societal actors involved in addressing key national and global challenges for 2030.
In order to achieve the health and well-being proposed by SDG 3, it is necessary to intervene in its environmental determinants, which are reflected with concrete targets in five other Sustainable Development Goals: water, sanitation and hygiene, air quality, chemical safety and climate change.
For this reason, along the Almendares River, nature welcomed art, sport, traditional natural medicine and numerous initiatives in this celebration to raise awareness of this system, which is centered on people and the planet and is nothing but health.