children returned to school on April 2nd, not from a holiday but a heatwave in which thermometers reached 45°C. Teachers had been finding it just as difficult to concentrate as students, says Chol Guran Mayuot, who teaches in Juba, the capital. “You get up in the morning and you feel exhausted already.”
As Africa cooks, inequality is baked in. A study in Nairobi found that it was several degrees hotter in dense slums than in the leafy surroundings of the meteorological department, where official readings are taken. It is even more stifling indoors. While the rich slumber in air-conditioned rooms, the poor toss and turn beneath tin roofs. In the South African summer, temperatures recorded inside shacks swing by 14°C over the course of the day.
Hot weather also threatens health. Heat exposure is associated with a higher risk of pre-term births, stillbirths and hypertension in pregnancy, among other problems, says Gloria Maimela of the University of the Witwatersrand. A study in Burkina Faso found that with each extra degree of heat mothers breastfeed for two fewer minutes a day. Health clinics in many countries are poorly ventilated and are hotter than the air outside.
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Source: Daily_Record - 🏆 9. / 89 Read more »
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