More than 60,000 people died in Europe due to heat in the summer of 2022, according to a study published Monday by the scientific journal Nature Medicine, which advises redoubling efforts to deal with rising temperatures.
In total, the analysis reveals that between May 30 and September 4, 2022 there will have been 61,672 deaths from causes directly related to heat.
Scientists from the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) and the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) analyzed temperature and mortality data for the period 2015-2022 in 823 regions of 35 European countries, representing a population total of more than 543 million people.
They built epidemiological models to predict mortality in all regions during all weeks of the summer of 2022.
“It is a very high number of deaths. We knew the effects of heat on mortality with the precedent of 2003, but with this analysis we see that there is still a lot of work to be done to protect populations,” he told Agence France-Presse (AFP), a researcher at Inserm and co-author of the study. study Hicham Achebak.
According to scientists’ estimates, without an effective response, the European continent will face an average of more than 68,000 deaths each summer by 2030 and more than 94,000 by 2040.
Last year’s summer was the hottest on record in Europe, characterized by an intense series of unprecedented heat waves, droughts and forest fires.
Source: TSF
