The war in Ukraine has sparked a global food crisis which is predicted to kill millions due to hunger and contagious diseases, potentially triggering the next health catastrophe on earth.
According to a health executive, the global food crisis will ‘kill millions’ by disease as the 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.
While talking in the interview, Peter Sands, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said, “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.”
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“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.
Meanwhile, the British former banker now heads the $4 billion fund, said that the world governments should minimise the impact of the food crisis by providing frontline healthcare to their poorest communities, who will be the most vulnerable.
“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.”
Peter Sands also said that “It’s been a disaster for TB,” he added, “In 2020 you saw globally 1.5 million people less getting treated for TB and tragically that means several hundreds of thousands of people will die but also that those people will infect other people.”
He concluded that solving the food crisis was now paramount in aiding the treatment of the world’s second-deadliest infectious disease.
