AFP – June 23, 2022
The global food crisis sparked by the war in Ukraine will kill millions by leaving the hungriest more vulnerable to infectious diseases, potentially triggering the world’s next health catastrophe, the head of a major aid organisation has warned.
A Russian naval blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports has stopped grain shipments from the world’s fourth-largest exporter of wheat and corn, raising the spectre of shortages and hunger in low-income countries.
The knock-on effects of the food shortages mean many will die not only of starvation but from having weaker defenses against infectious diseases due to bad nutrition, Peter Sands, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria told AFP this week.
“I think we’ve probably already begun our next health crisis. It’s not a new pathogen but it means people who are poorly nourished will be more vulnerable to the existing diseases,” he said in an interview on the sidelines of a G20 health minister meeting in the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta.
“I think the combined impact of infectious diseases and the food shortages and the energy crisis… we can be talking about millions of extra deaths because of this,” he said.
World governments should minimize the impact of the food crisis by providing frontline healthcare to their poorest communities, who will be the most vulnerable, said the British former banker who now heads the $4 billion fund.
“That means focusing on primary healthcare so the healthcare that is delivered in the villages, in the communities. Hospitals are important but when you are faced with this kind of challenge, the most important thing is primary healthcare.”
“It’s been a disaster for TB,” said Sands.