AFRIVERSE: Project to study climate change impact on health launched in Yaounde.

The project, titled: “AFRIVERSE: Building African Climate-Health Attribution Data, Digital Tools and Capacity”, was officially unveiled in Yaounde on Wednesday, February 18. 

The launch was accompanied by a capacity‑building workshop for data collectors and institutional partners. It brought together stakeholders, including healthcare workers, researchers, policymakers and representatives from partner institutions. 

The initiative is funded by UK-based global philanthropy, Wellcome Trust, and implemented in Cameroon by the University of Yaounde I, through its Higher Teacher Training College, ENS Yaounde. 

It forms part of a multi-country collaboration with the University of Cape Town, the South African Medical Research Council, the Kenya Meteorological Department, the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, among other partners. 

The project is being coordinated in the country by Achiri Elvis Ndikum, a biologist and doctoral candidate at a German university.

The launch was presided over by the Deputy Director of Academic Affairs and Cooperation of the University of Yaounde I, Prof Essama Ngala Bernadin, representing the Rector, Prof Magloire Remy Etoa. 

In his keynote address, Prof Essama Ngala noted that Cameroon, often described as Africa in miniature for its climatic diversity, was a fitting setting for research of this kind. 

He emphasised the university's full support for the initiative, pledging that all institutions within the university with the capacity to host such activities would open their doors to the project.

“I would like to thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to be witness of this special event, this scientific event. We would like to give you all our full support on the academic and administrative fields so that this project can be a very good reality in a very short future," he said.

On her part, the Director of ENS, Prof Patricia Bissa Enama, noted that the college was selected as the implementing institution because of its unique position as a teacher training body. 

The knowledge acquired through the project, she said, would be passed on by future teachers to generations of students, embedding climate awareness into classrooms across the country.

Enter AFRIVERSE Project Coordinator

Speaking to reporters, AFRIVERSE Project Coordinator, Achiri Elvis Ndikum, said the initiative seeks to place climate change at the heart of public health discussions.

“We want to generate reliable information on how heat and high temperatures affect people living with cardiovascular, respiratory and mental health conditions because much is said but little is founded on evidence. When it is very hot, people complain but do not know what is happening to them,” Ndikum explained.

He explained that the study will examine hospital admissions during periods of extreme heat and compare them with meteorological data to determine patterns and attributable risks. According to him, much is said about climate change, but data directly linking temperature variations to specific health outcomes in the country remain limited.

Fieldwork will be conducted at the Chantal Biya Foundation, Hôpital Jamot and the University Teaching Hospital, CHU. Two computers were donated to each hospital to facilitate digital data entry by trained collectors.

“We will collect basic information from hospital registers. Patients will not be exposed to any risk, and we have ethical clearance from the Ministry of Public Health,” Ndikum said.

Meteorological data will be sourced from the Ministry of Transport, which oversees the National Meteorology Centre. Ndikum said the decision to work directly with the ministry was to ensure credibility and access to primary data.

The first year of the project will focus on data collection, the second on analysis in collaboration with the University of Cape Town and other partners, and the third on dissemination of findings to policymakers, media and the public.

In a separate address, Ndikum traced the origins of the project to research he began a decade ago on asthma prevalence in Cameroon. He reported that earlier findings showed a prevalence of 5.3 per cent among adolescents aged 13 to 14, compared with 1.8 per cent in younger children and 3.0 per cent in adults.

“These findings raised questions about environmental risk factors and pushed us to investigate further,” he said, noting that groundwork carried out over several years laid the foundation for securing international funding.

A patient's voice

During the event, Ashley Ngono, a volunteer with APYLAV and a nursing science student, shared her experience living with asthma. She described episodes of chest pain, slowed breathing and eye irritation, attributing flare-ups to pollution and smoke from domestic activities such as burning firewood and waste, particularly during the dry season. She said her health challenges motivated her to pursue a career in nursing and to engage in youth advocacy on air pollution and climate health.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3708 of Thursday February 19, 2026