As global temperatures rise, studies show that Africa is warming faster than the global average and the health toll of extreme heat is ‘silently’ hitting children the hardest.
This has prompted researchers, schools and community advocates in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia to work together to address what they describe as an urgent but often invisible crisis through the Climate Health Intervention (CHI²) project.
“The bigger issue is that, whatever change that takes place in the planet, Africa is going to be a few degrees hotter than the rest of the continents. That means we have an even bigger task ahead of us,” said Prof Rajen Naidoo, a University of KZN occupational and environmental health scholar, during a project launch on Tuesday.
Naidoo said Africa was exceeding the benchmarks set by international leaders in this regard, so it cannot afford to wait for global change.
“We cannot sit back and wait for that to happen, we have to address the issues in our communities. How do we form partnerships with different stakeholders ― government, community organisations and researchers ― to address the problems in our communities?”
Naidoo, also an expert on air pollution, child lung health and policy engagement, is leading the CHI² project. It is examining how heat and environmental factors affect children’s health across Durban, Harare and Haramaya.
With a budget of about R60m over three years, funded by UK-based Wellcome Foundation, the project wants to develop practical, site-specific interventions to protect children from climate-related health risks.
Naidoo said as researchers, they believe that the magnitude of impact from a hotter climate is still not visible to health professionals or “global leaders”.
“This invisibility affects the most vulnerable, including our children. We know that heat makes learning, playing and even breathing a challenge for children.”
He added there is scientific proof that heat can harm a baby even before birth and that those risks may continue through infancy, but insists there’s still no clear picture of its full impact.
“Children’s ability to regulate their core body temperature is much more limited than that of adults, meaning their exposure to higher heat causes a greater increase in the core temperature, affecting the way their bodies work,” he said.
“However, unless we specifically assess children for these effects, they will be missed until irreversible health effects set in.”
The project will focus on the lung health of children, particularly in urban and industrial areas, which combine heatwaves and air pollution.
One such area is Wentworth, on the Durban South Basin.
Shanice Firmin, from the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance, said local communities were already juggling environmental pressures caused by industrial pollution.
“Our community is unique ― [it’s] deeply embedded in long-standing air quality and environmental challenges. We are surrounded by two major oil refineries and several chemical industries, and our residents have lived with these health consequences for generations,” she said.
“On top of those pre-existing issues, we are also dealing with the intensifying heat brought by climate change. So we have to ask: how do our communities respond, recover and build resilience in the face of yet another threat?”
In Wentworth’s Assegai Primary School, principal Neil Blankenberg has witnessed firsthand the effects of heat on pupils.
“Our community has long experienced a high number of respiratory issues, and educators have noticed that at certain times of the day, when the heat peaks, pupils become completely unproductive,” he said.
“The problem isn’t just outside, it’s inside classrooms too. They are overcrowded, and with body heat adding to the environmental heat, the conditions became unbearable.”
To address the problem, the school has implemented comfort breaks, allowing children to step outside into shaded areas, and has encouraged learners to keep water bottles at their desks.
Uniform policies have been adapted to include summer clothing and hats while physical education schedules were adjusted or moved under shelter. Teachers now monitor students with pre-existing respiratory conditions more carefully during hot periods.
Despite these reforms, the challenges have still not completely subsided.
He recounted an incident where a pupil from a nearby school collapsed and died during a physical education session.
He added that a five-year-old Grade R child was brought to his office with a severe nosebleed and clots of blood because of the heat.
He said there was a need for public education on the reality of climate change and the impact of heatwaves on pupils.
“Too often, parents see a nosebleed or a child fainting and think it’s nothing serious, just a child playing too hard. What they don’t realise is that these small incidents can have long-term health consequences,” he said.
“It’s our job as educators to make sure both parents and policymakers understand that climate change is already affecting our children’s health, right here in our classrooms.”
Assegai, along with Ethekwini Primary in KwaMashu, are the two schools selected to participate in the project. They will assess lung health on 300 pupils in grades 3 and 4 in each of the three countries.
“The lung function tests we’ll be using are quite technical, and children need to understand the instructions. That’s why we’re focusing on grades 3 and 4 pupils ― they’re old enough to follow directions and provide reliable results,” said Naidoo.
When selecting schools, Naidoo said they focused on urban areas for logistical and cost reasons because these studies are difficult to conduct in rural settings while urban areas experience stronger heat and pollution effects.
Shamiso Fana, one of the researchers from the University of Zimbabwe, said conducting their research would include environmental and heat assessment of the places where children spend time: at school, home and where they play to get a picture of how heat hits them every day.
They will then carry out health assessments, including lung function. Thereafter, they will compare that data to see if there’s any association between exposures and the outcomes from the health data.
“The study is so we can generate evidence that extreme heat is affecting the children’s respiratory health. When we get the evidence we will then use that information to develop targeted, tailor-made interventions to reduce exposure to heat for the children,” she said.
“We can’t stop global warming now, but we can try to reduce exposure on the school-going children, so that’s the main aim of coming up with interventions of reducing exposure to extreme heat in the children.”
Naidoo added: “While we are interested in understanding these silent epidemics among our children, our objective is to make sure we develop interventions to protect our children.”
Interventions include developing educational programmes and awareness at schools, identifying appropriate materials to construct classrooms and making sure that policies at school, local government and national levels address these concerns.
“To this end, we are partnering with communities, government departments and non-governmental organisations to determine the most appropriate and feasible interventions.”
Preparations for the project started in June and assessment on the learners is expected to start in January 2026 to May 2028.
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