What You Need to Know as a Pediatric Infectious Diseases Doctor

Over the past decades, we have succeeded in improving child survival and well-being, including a reduction in the burden and mortality of infectious diseases, particularly in children under 5 years of age. However, much remains to be done to reduce the 3 million deaths per year from communicable diseases among children and adolescents worldwide, which equates to about one death every 10 seconds.¹ First and foremost, the ongoing changes in natural systems threaten to reverse the health gains achieved over the last century.² The United Nations Children's Fund’s Children’s Climate Risk Index reveals that up to half of the world’s 2.2 billion children are at “extremely high risk” of the impacts of climate change, and today’s expectations predict only increase in coming decades.³ More than half of known human infectious diseases may be exacerbated by climate change (Fig. 1).⁴ For instance, increasing circulation of mosquitos infected with viruses such as dengue or zika, already observed in European Mediterranean areas, can be expected as a consequence of rising temperatures.⁵ A recent scoping review found that 81% of all publications investigating the link between climate change and infectious diseases concluded that climate change exacerbates infectious diseases.⁶ Therefore, all pediatric infectious disease specialists are likely to experience, to some degree, the effects of climate change on the diseases that they see in their daily practice. This review aims to give an outline of these effects in the broader context of planetary health. Planetary health reflects the relationship between climate change, environmental factors and human well-being.⁷

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