UpDate - Vol. 11, No. 22, Page 8
March 5, 1992
EPA study; Research project part of global warming initiative
The 747 finished its non-stop flight from Paris to
Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso in West Africa, during a
dust storm. Red dust swirled around the runway. January is in the
dry season in West Africa. But, the climate wasn't new to Laurence
S. Kalkstein, who had just spent two weeks in a very dusty Cairo.
Kalkstein, professor of geography at the University and
coordinator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Global
Warming/Human Health Program, traveled to Africa to study the
impact of global warming on human health, concentrating on
heat-related mortality rates in Cairo and insect-transmitted
diseases in Burkina Faso.
This project, part of the global warming initiative in the
Climate Change Division of the EPA, has two goals Kalkstein
explained.
First, the agency wants to determine the impact of global
warming on health, agriculture, forestry, sea-level rise and water
resources, and it wants to create anticipatory, cost-effective
policies to mitigate these environmental problems.
The EPA does not have the authority to dictate policy,
instead, it conducts studies and hires economists and political
scientists to examine research data, create policy options and then
make suggestions to the president and Congress.
Kalkstein, who coordinates the sector dealing with the impact
of global warming on health, said, "We're not even sure the globe
is going to warm yet. So, we're not going to set the whole world on
its ear at this particular point without that proof, and,
unfortunately, that proof is elusive and will be very difficult to
get."
But, Kalkstein has already begun the research necessary to
prove the risks possible, should global warming be a reality.
Accompanied by Karl Western, a medical advisor who is the assistant
director for international research for the National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of
Health, Kalkstein traveled first to Cairo for two weeks. The EPA
calculates that Egypt will be the country most likely to be
affected by global warming because it is already so hot there, so
all five of its global warming projects are being conducted there.
In Cairo, Kalkstein and Western worked with Egyptian
scientists at Ain Shams University, which has a student population
of 200,000. Some college enrollments are as large as major U.S.
cities, Kalkstein said.
They collected daily heat stress-related mortality data-the
rate at which people die at different temperatures. Kalkstein said
the health aspect of the Egyptian project is under way, however,
the Egyptians are not as alarmed by global warming as are
Americans.
In a country that struggles to feed the population daily, it
is difficult to eliminate polluting industries because they are so
closely related to the nation's livelihood.
In Ouagadougou, the they began research on two
insect-transmitted diseases, malaria and onchocerciasis, also
called "river blindness." Mosquitoes transmit malaria, while black
flies transmit onchocerciasis. Both insects breed in or near
rivers.
Kalkstein, Western and the EPA are afraid that if global
warming occurs, these insects will move north, or polarly, to
countries that currently have no problem with either disease. Even
if this occurs, Kalkstein said, these diseases will not be
problematic in the United States and other countries with good
public health facilities.
Malaria and onchocerciasis are problems in undeveloped West
African countries. Kalkstein described the living conditions in
Burkina Faso: "You are so overwhelmed by seeing how these people
live, and the incredible poverty and the water they drink. Now, of
course, these people have different "flora" than we do in their
stomachs. That is, they are able to cope much better than you and
me with these types of food conditions. But, still, the average
life span is maybe 40 years."
The conditions there include no sanitation, few paved roads,
no electricity and no refrigeration. The people's lives usually
depend on the river. They bathe, wash their clothes and drink from
the same water source.
Kalkstein's malaria project is in its initial stage. Malaria
is a prevalent problem in West Africa, and kills millions of
people. Scientist know the malaria life-cycle: It takes from 21 to
30 days to develop the disease from the mosquito bite to the first
symptoms. Kalkstein is studying the number of individuals afflicted
by malaria now. From the data he gathers, he will develop models to
project how malaria will affect people if the globe warms.
Ouagadougou is the headquarters of the Onchocerciasis Control
Program. Black flies are the transmitters of this disease. They lay
their eggs in fast-flowing rivers, and when villagers go there to
bathe, wash their clothes or drink, the insects bite usually around
their ankles. Infected black flies have onchocerciasis worms in
their heads. When they bite humans, they ingest their blood and
inject the worm into the human body. Here the worms reproduce.
However, it may take a year or 18 months before the appearance
of the disease's first symptoms: huge lumps, or nodules, under the
skin containing worms, can grow to be 2 feet long. The worms are
thin, but very long and they live under the skin, but do not invade
the organs of the body.
As Kalkstein describes it, "If you put your thumb on it, you
feel a rolling area. I've seen them under the armpits. I've seen
them everywhere. And they migrate around the body." The worms
travel up the body from the ankles to the head. When they reach the
head, they move behind the eye destroying the victim's vision.
Kalkstein says up to 30 to 50 percent of the villagers in
Ouagadougou may become blind. In Africa as a whole, 25 million
people are affected. The disease itself is not fatal, but the
debilitating blindness often leads to death.
The West Africans are learning to control the onchocerciasis
problem, Kalkstein said. They apply pesticides to the rivers to
kill the black flies and villagers receive an anti-worm drug to
prevent the disease. However, many of the villagers do not realize
the fly causes the disease.
"The idea of the Onchocersiasis Control Program," he said, "is
to spread the word to these villagers that the fly is what's
causing it. Some of them think it's bad air. Some think it's a
curse. They make little dolls to ward off the curse."
Burkina Faso is essential to the EPA's global warming
research. The EPA studies how the climate affects the fly now and
estimates how it might change.
Kalkstein said he was surprised at the technology used to
study the fly and the disease in such a primitive place "What
amazed me is that in this primitive country they've got a
one-billion-dollar World Health Organization project going on. In
the midst of this poverty is a program with data that, for a
climatologist, is the best of its kind in the world."
Kalkstein's involvement with the EPA began two years ago when
he took a sabbatical from teaching at the University to conduct
research at the agency in Washington. This current global
warming/human health program has, over the past two years,
attracted approximately $500,000 in EPA support.
"I'm one of a few outsiders, academic types, who actually
maintains an office at EPA," Kalkstein said, "and I am treated
pretty much like an EPA employee, which has allowed me to
understand more fully the workings of a governmental, environmental
organization. That's been extremely helpful."
At Delaware, Kalkstein teaches undergraduate courses in the
conservation of natural resources and human-environmental
interactions and, on the graduate level, he teaches synoptic
climatology and seminars in climatology.
- Laura Reisinger