SciDev.Net

The health gateway of the Climate Institute, which aims to help policymakers tackle climate change, has detailed notes on the resurgence of infectious diseases through global warming. These include vector-borne diseases spread through mosquitoes, ticks, triatomine bugs, sandflies and blackflies. It also looks at rodent-borne diseases, which are also set to increase as the climate changes — increased heavy rainfall can drive rodents out of their burrows and climate change is set to alter human migration patterns which could bring people into closer contact with rodents.

The GHF's mission is to document the impact of climate change on humans, much of which is health-related. The website expands on the forum's key goal to raise awareness of "climate injustice", by which it means that the world's poor who cause "less than 1 per cent of global emissions, suffer 99 per cent of the casualties". The GHF achieves this goal through advocacy, especially at major climate change conferences. The organisation also works with public and private partners on key projects, including Weather Info For All, which seeks to provide reliable weather information to vulnerable communities affected by climate change.

This partnership of government and non-government organisations, researchers, international bodies and the private sector has a much-called for goal: to increase cooperation between organisations involved different sectors such as health, climate, humanitarian assistance, ecosystems, research and operational services.

The partners collaborate on regional projects to increase capacity within the medical and environmental science communities; use rural communication networks to provide information to remote communities; and enhance the capacity of public-health services to predict and respond quickly to cholera, malaria, meningitis and other climate-sensitive diseases.

ISESCO aims to promote the separate and distinct educational, scientific and cultural heritage that combines the 57 OIC member countries. The primary purpose of the organisation is to coordinate the activities of specialist agencies responsible for similar functions within each of the OIC member countries.

ISESCO has helped develop a number of action plans and strategies on an OIC-wide basis in areas such as water resources, university education and Islamic culture. ISESCO has also started awarding prizes in education and literacy, sciences and university research, and culture and communication to individuals within the OIC member countries.

The IAS was established in 1986 on the recommendation of the OIC Standing Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation (COMSTECH). IAS's stated mission is to "provide an institutional set up for the utilisation of Science and Technology for the development of Islamic countries and humanity at large".

Headquartered in Amman, Jordan, the IAS attempts to serve as a consultative organisation of OIC member countries on matters relating to science and technology; initiate cooperative scientific and technological programmes and activities in science and technology; encourage and promote research on major problems facing OIC member countries; formulate standards of scientific performance and attainment, and to award prizes and honours for outstanding scientific achievements to centres of excellence in all science and technology disciplines.

JCOM is an online journal on scientific communication, which is trying to become an interdisciplinary melting-pot capable of providing some theoretical guidelines for science communication. Each article undergoes multidisciplinary peer-reviewing by experts belonging to different areas of competence such as science, communication and theory of communication.

This part of the WHO's website focuses on the links between climate change and health. One factsheet looks specifically at climate change and infectious disease: it examines the historical evidence for links between climate and vector-borne disease, outlines different models to forecast climatic influences on infectious disease and offers examples of exactly how changes in climate can affect the spread of infectious disease. Another factsheet describes how to translate the science into useful policy decisions so will be particularly valuable for policymakers.