After Cyclone Ditwah: Climate-proofing Sri Lanka’s health system

– Cyclone Ditwah exposed critical gaps in Sri Lanka’s health and disaster response systems. – Health and disaster agencies lack integrated dashboards and real-time data, forcing frontline workers to rely on informal, siloed information during emergencies. – Building integrated coordination platforms and climate-health surveillance systems can create climate-resilient health systems. As Sri Lanka currently counts human and economic costs of Cyclone Ditwah, the images are both disturbing and somewhat familiar: flooded hospitals, access roads buried by landslides, evacuation centres overflowing with displaced families, and officials in health and disaster management services scrambling to meet everyone’s needs. The death toll is…

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