Health journals urge world leaders to deliver climate justice for Africa

More than 250 health journals worldwide, including five AOSIS journals, published an editorial at the same time urging world leaders to deliver climate justice for Africa ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference.

The editorial was written by 16 editors from leading African biomedical journals, including Prof Robert Mash (Editor-in-Chief of the African Journal of Primary Healthcare & Family Medicine (PHCFM) and Dr Fhumulani Mavis Mulaudzi (Editor-in-Chief of Curationis).

The world is facing a climate change emergency, which the authors address in this published editorial. According to the authors, Africa has been disproportionately affected.

It has, however, done little to cause the crisis and urges wealthy nations to increase their support for Africa and vulnerable countries in addressing the past, present, and future effects of climate change.

Never before have so many journals issued the same call, reflecting the gravity of the world’s climate change emergency.

Read the editorials published in AOSIS Journals:
1. Health SA Gesondheid – https://hsag.co.za/index.php/hsag/article/view/2218
2. Curationis – https://curationis.org.za/index.php/curationis/article/view/2428
3. Southern African Journal of HIV Medicine – https://sajhivmed.org.za/index.php/hivmed/article/view/1467
4. African Journal of Laboratory Medicine – https://ajlmonline.org/index.php/ajlm/article/view/2080
5. African Journal of Primary Health Care and Family Medicine – https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/3830

Prof Bob Mash, Editor of the African Journal of Primary Health Care and Family Medicine and President of the South African Academy of Family Physicians said: “In Africa we are already seeing the devastating effects of climate change on people’s health and the need to strengthen community-oriented primary health care is now more than ever.”

Dr Fhumulani Mavis Mulaudzi, Professor, University of Pretoria and Editor-in-Chief, Curationis: Climate change and its effects on health is keeping us on our toes. For climate change to become an issue of the past , we need unity as individuals and corporations. If we take care of our own communities and immediate world, we will see a significant change. “Mutingati” holding hands in arresting the calamity of climate change.