TB epidemic ‘could flare in near future’

双胞胎全球挑战COVID-19和气候变化monopolised the news agenda throughout the past year and will undoubtedly remain firmly in the public eye in 2022.

SciDev.Netspoke to a doctor and a scientist from these fields about their expectations for the year ahead and what progress must be made to tackle the parallel crises.

TB and COVID-19

Sushmita Roychowdhury is the director of pulmonology at Fortis Hospital in Kolkata, India. Since the beginning of the global pandemic in 2020, she has treated critically ill patients with COVID-19, helping them recover from the disease.

Roychowdhury认为，印度的COVID-19疫苗接种策略一直是该国与该疾病的斗争中的游戏规则改变者，并可能有助于减少“波浪浪潮”。

However, she warns that in 2022, rising cases of drug-resistant tuberculosis — due to interruptions to programmes to combat the disease as a result of COVID-19 — is a matter of “real concern”.

Identification, isolation and treatment ofTBRoychowdhury说，必须尽可能完全实现患者。她补充说：“否则，这是另一个等待爆发的流行火山。”

With the appearance of newer, more rapidly transmissible COVID-19 variants such as Omicron, Roychowdhury hopes for COVID-19 vaccination programmes to be given priority in 2022 and made compulsory for all in India, including children.

“Our only prevention appears to be boosted immunity as a first line of defence to minimise risk of serious disease and for a pandemic to turn into an endemic, so that the world may once more feel safe enough to live in.”

主任Sushmita Roychowdhury肺学佛rtis Hospital, Kolkata, India

She believes the Omicron variant will overshadow all previous variants given its rapid spread, but she is hopeful that the pandemic can end before the year 2022 does. In India, she expects COVID-19 booster doses to be rolled out for vulnerable populations within two months.

Roychowdhury说：“我们唯一的预防似乎被提高了免疫力，作为第一道防线，以最大程度地减少严重疾病的风险，并使大流行变成流行性，因此世界可能会再次感到足够安全，可以生活。”她补充说，在此之前，戴着口罩和身体远处的“需要成为我们的生活方式”。

‘Look to global South for climate science’

Laura Gallardo Klenner is a meteorologist from the University of Chile whose work focuses on urbanisation as both a problem and a solution to climate change. She expects 2022 will be a year in which climate science will continue to bear fruit.

The member and lead author of theSixth Assessment Reportof the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is optimistic that new knowledge generated through interdisciplinary collaboration and civic participation will allow countries tobetter face climate change.

她说：“在不到十年的科学中，科学已经看到的巨大变化已经能够将极端事件归因于气候变化。”“在2014年，这是不可能的。能够证明这种归因将有助于社会在2022年和未来几年做好准备。”

Klenner believes political and social changes are needed to face the already inevitable effects of climate change in 2022. The impacts of climate change around the world have been so overwhelming and surprising that “there is no other option but to start making decisions much closer to science,” she says.

“I would expect that [in 2022] all countries will show an immensely greater level of ambition than what we saw in Glasgow [at the COP26 climate summit in November, 2021],” Klenner said.

“The profound changes required to address the crises of today’s world (climate, biodiversity, energy, food security), will not happen without people’s participation.” Wealthy countries must “put the resources in place to enable the needed energy transition” worldwide, she adds.

Finally, scientists must also rise to the challenge, Klenner believes. “Conventional science is no longer enough. Many of us who have had the privilege of studying the world have used the same lenses,” says Klenner.

“Other, new, totally different perspectives are needed. Climate change requires science from the global South, science with other priorities and other languages.”

This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Global desk.