Doctors are being told to treat this El Niño like a health emergency
This year’s El Niño is being treated as more than a climate story.
The World Economic Forum, citing the World Health Organization’s own data, says it carries genuine public health weight too.
The specific risks health authorities are watching
WHO, links El Niño events to heat stress, wildfire smoke exposure, vector-borne diseases like malaria and dengue, waterborne illness, and nutrition shocks.
The exact impact depends on intensity, season, and local vulnerability.
One relevant detail from broader heat-health research: for every 1°C increase in heat stress exposure during pregnancy, researchers found a 17% rise in foetal strain.
Elevated heart rate and reduced blood flow through the umbilical cord showed the effect.
This isn’t a finding specific to El Niño. However, it becomes directly relevant once El Niño raises heat exposure in already-hot regions.
Why this pushes past the usual heat warnings
This often happens at the exact moment those systems are already juggling disease outbreaks or malnutrition cases.
As Robert Muggah, founder of the Igarapé Institute, puts it: El Niño should be seen as much of a public-health threat as a climate hazard.
It’s hectic realising health authorities are bracing for this the same way they’d brace for any other health emergency.
Does thinking of El Niño as a health risk, not just a weather pattern, change how you’ll prepare for summer?
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.