The climate crisis is also a major health crisis, but six proven measures could help prevent 1.6 million deaths every year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

A new WHO report, released ahead of COP31, highlights six climate and health interventions that could save lives while delivering trillions of dollars in economic and fiscal benefits.

“The climate crisis is a health crisis, but much of the harm it causes can be prevented with tools we already have,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.

“This report shows that scaling up proven, affordable actions could save millions of lives, with the greatest gains in the countries that need them most. As governments prepare for the next round of climate negotiations, protecting health must be at the centre of climate action,” he added.

What Are The 6 Measures That Could Save 1.6 Million Lives?

Also read: Big Lancet Report: Heat-Related Deaths Rise 36% Since Paris Climate Agreement, Global Warming Blamed

The report estimates that scaling up the six actions globally could prevent 1.6 million deaths annually, equivalent to one in every 40 deaths, based on modelled projections.

The six measures include:

• Heat-health warning systems
• Climate-resilient drinking-water services
• Basic sanitation services
• Hygiene and handwashing facilities
• Cleaner household fuels and technologies for cooking and heating
• Efficient fossil fuel pricing policies

Together, these actions could also help avoid 16.7 billion tonnes of CO₂ emissions, equivalent to 31% of global annual greenhouse gas emissions, excluding land use, land-use change and forestry.

6 Climate Actions Could Deliver Trillions In Economic Benefits

Read More: Climate Change And Gut Health: How Heat, Drought And Unsafe Water Raise Risks, Global Experts Warn

Heat-health warning systems were the most cost-beneficial intervention assessed, generating an estimated US$835 in benefits for every US$1 invested. However, estimates varied across different scenarios and sensitivity analyses, ranging from US$364 to US$1,272 for every US$1 invested, the WHO said

Meanwhile, efficient fossil fuel pricing policies were estimated to deliver the largest overall economic welfare benefits, at US$3,041.10 billion. Estimates across different scenarios and sensitivity analyses ranged from US$690.59 billion to US$5,342.64 billion.

These policies were also projected to generate US$5,440.93 billion in fiscal benefits, with estimates ranging from US$3,442.96 billion to US$5,440.93 billion, the WHO said. The policies are also estimated to prevent 1.2 million deaths annually.

COP31: Health To Be A Key Focus

The 2026 United Nations Climate Change Conference, commonly known as COP31, will take place in Antalya, Türkiye, from November 9 to 20. The conference's dedicated COP31 Health Day will be held on November 9, the first day of the conference.

Governments are expected to share their climate reports and discuss ways to advance climate-resilient and environmentally sustainable health systems.

A wearable device developed by Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal has sparked a massive social media debate among doctors over its scientific claims and validity.

Called Temple, the gadget, worn on the forehead, is designed to track physiological signals linked with blood flow in the brain and generate a metric called 'Entropy', which, according to Goyal, is a measure of the body's real-time energy expenditure.

Priced at Rs 85,000, one of the factors that has sparked arguments, the device is now available pre-orders in India. However, medical experts have questioned whether the technology can accurately measure what it claims to and whether its readings offer meaningful insights into brain health, ageing or longevity.

The controversy intensified after Goyal defended the project against criticism from doctors. In a post on X, he said the development had cost $30 million, including $20 million of his personal money. He also said further research was underway.

“We have a number of new research breakthroughs coming up (especially Entropy), and are validating them as we speak,” Goyal wrote on November 6.

Can Temple Actually Measure Blood Flow To The Brain?

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One of the main concerns is the device's sensor placement. Temple uses optical sensors based on photoplethysmography (PPG), positioned near the temple. These detect changes in blood flow through superficial blood vessels.

However, the superficial temporal artery supplies blood to the scalp and face. The brain receives its blood supply primarily through the internal carotid and vertebral arteries. A signal detected from a superficial vessel cannot automatically be interpreted as a measurement of blood circulation inside the brain.

Dr. Cyriac Abby Philips, widely known online as The Liver Doc, is one of the many doctors who challenged Goyal's claims about Temple on social media post.

He wrote, "Deepinder's Temple device is very much like Baba Ramdev's Coronil. Only one difference. Former is scienceploitation, latter is pseudoscience and both are harmful in their own ways. Learn to identify a scam and fraud when you see one."

Dr Jason Philip, in an X post, called the research behind the device "pseudoscience". He said that the gravity ageing hypothesis is a flawed concept. Ageing is a result of many factors like metabolic factors, genomic instability, mitochondrial dysfunction, chronic inflammation and more.

Many also slammed Goyal for selling the device without solid research or clinical outcomes.

Dr Rishabh Jain responded to Goyal's post, saying that doctors asking for scientific evidence is a legitimate demand. He also said that Goyal's response to clinical questions are mostly commerce-based and does not "constitute scientific validation".

Dr Kapil Singhal, Director of Neurology at the Institute of Neurosciences, Medanta, Noida, told Mint, “Temple appears to be measuring blood flow in the superficial temporal artery, which supplies blood to the scalp, not the brain. The brain receives blood through the internal carotid and vertebral arteries. These are not the same.”

Dr Praveen Gupta, Chairman of Marengo Asia International Institute of Neuro & Spine, Gurugram, also cautioned against treating a reading from one location as representative of the entire brain.

A device may detect physiological changes near the forehead but establishing that these reflect cerebral blood flow requires comparison with established clinical measurements and independent validation.

What Is Entropy And Why Are Doctors Questioning It?

Also read: Mental Health And Longevity: The Mind-Body Connection To Aging Gracefully

Goyal has described Entropy as a new biomarker that measures how hard the body is working to sustain itself. The score is influenced by factors like sleep, exercise, stress, food and meditation.

However, doctors say that a metric responding to changes in activity does not establish what biological function it measures.

Neurologist Dr Sudhir Kumar told India Today that the idea was interesting but required stronger evidence.

“The idea of developing a novel physiological metric from signals recorded over the temple region is certainly intriguing, and advances in wearable technology have the potential to improve our understanding of human physiology. However, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” he said.

He added, “The key questions are not whether the signal changes with exercise, stress, or meditation, but whether it reliably measures what it claims to measure, whether it adds information beyond existing metrics, and whether acting on it improves health outcomes.”

In other words, doctors want to know how Entropy is calculated, what it represents biologically and whether it has been independently shown to improve health outcomes.

Gravity Ageing Hypothesis

Temple is also associated with Goyal's Gravity Ageing Hypothesis which proposes that gravity and prolonged periods spent upright may affect blood circulation to the brain and contribute to ageing.

However, the brain has a mechanism called cerebral autoregulation that helps maintain relatively stable blood flow despite changes in posture and blood pressure.

Dr Gupta told The Indian Express, “The brain automatically adjusts the size of its blood vessels and regulates blood supply to ensure that it continues to receive enough oxygen and nutrients, even when we change positions, stand up or exercise.”

He added that there is no established scientific evidence that everyday exposure to gravity progressively damages the brain or accelerates ageing.

More About Temple

Goyal has said that Temple is a wellness and research product rather than a medical device. He has also argued that its claims will be independently verifiable and that more research will be shared soon.

However, doctors say the difference between detecting a physiological signal and demonstrating its clinical significance is crucial. Temple's ability to track certain readings would not, by itself, establish that it can diagnose neurological conditions, predict cognitive decline or measure longevity.

An experimental bird flu vaccine designed by researchers using artificial intelligence (AI) has shown significant promise. It provided complete protection against multiple virus variants in animal-based trials. It outperformed existing vaccines stockpiled by governments for a human outbreak.

Developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge and its spin-off company DIOSynVax, the broad-spectrum vaccine protected mice and ferrets against various variants of bird flu virus that were genetically diverse. In comparison, the existing vaccine used in the study protected only around 50% of the animals exposed to the same variants.

The findings were published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine recently. The researchers say the findings could help improve preparedness for future influenza outbreaks. The vaccine is yet to be tested in humans.

“Rather than providing immunity to a single variant of bird flu, our new broad-spectrum vaccine is protective against a huge range of variants. It’s designed to counteract viral evolution, rather than reacting to it,” said Professor Jonathan Heeney, who led the research at the University of Cambridge's Department of Veterinary Medicine.

Bird Flu Vaccine Designed Using AI

Also read: Bird Flu In Humans: 2 Cases, 1 Death In Washington; Experts Warn Of H5N1 Spread And Viral Evolution

Traditional vaccines often target specific virus strains that have already emerged and infected humans. However, influenza viruses can mutate rapidly, which could reduce the effectiveness of vaccines made for earlier variants.

The researchers collected genetic sequence data from bird flu viruses recorded through global surveillance programmes to tackle this challenge. These included samples from wildlife, livestock and infected humans.

They then used AI to analyse the large datasets and identify antigen features shared across different viruses. Antigens are the components of a vaccine that stimulate the immune system to identify and respond to a pathogen.

The researchers then used this information to design synthetic antigens, which were screened in laboratory tests before the most promising candidate was selected for animal trials.

“Using AI vastly speeds up the process of vaccine design, and then we can test the vaccine candidates in the lab to make sure they’re robust and safe,” Heeney said.

Dr Sneha Vishwanath, a member of the research team, explained that the vaccine's antigens were designed to target multiple stages of the virus's lifecycle. “By instructing the immune system to target different stages of the viral lifecycle, we can induce an immune response blocking several crucial steps in its replication,” she said.

What Did The Animal Study Find?

Also read: AI-Created Virus Injected Into A Human For The First Time To Fight Antibiotic Resistance

The experimental bird flu vaccine provided complete protection to mice and ferrets that were exposed to various genetically diverse bird flu variants. These variants have all been linked with human infections and are considered major pandemic threats.

By comparison, only around 50% of the animals survived exposure when they were given the World Health Organization's existing bird flu vaccine.

The researchers said the findings suggest that a vaccine designed to target features shared across multiple virus variants could offer better protection than one developed against a particular strain.

Human Trials Remain

The vaccine has only been tested in animal trials. Human clinical trials are the next step in the protocol. Its safety and effectiveness in people will need to be established before it can be considered for use.

Bird flu, also known as avian influenza, is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses that primarily affect birds but can sometimes infect mammals, including humans. Some human infections can be mild while other variants have caused severe illness and deaths.

The researchers believe developing vaccines that protect against a wider range of variants could help reduce the risks posed by emerging infections.

“It’s when bird flu adapts to live in the airways of mammals that we start to get really nervous,” Heeney said. “If we can make better animal vaccines, then we can better protect human health as well.”

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is investigating a possible cancer risk linked to Novartis' gene therapy Zolgensma after the Swiss drugmaker reported several cases of tumours in patients who had received the treatment. It included two patients aged less than two years old with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) in which investigators found evidence linking the tumour to the therapy.

Novartis's SMA Drug Under Investigation For Causing Tumour Growth

Zolgensma is a one-time gene therapy used to treat children under two years of age with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a rare genetic disorder that causes progressive muscle weakness. More than 6,000 patients have received the treatment since its approval in 2019.

In a safety update issued on November 6, the FDA said it had received reports of neoplasia, or tumour formation including malignancy, known as insertional oncogenesis. This occurs when genetic material delivered by a gene therapy becomes integrated into a patient's DNA and contributes to abnormal cell growth.

In two cases, molecular analysis of tumour tissue showed that DNA from the therapy's viral vector had integrated into the patients' genomes within the GLI1 gene, which can promote cancer when activated. The FDA said it was also investigating a third tumour linked with GLI1.

The agency said tumours had been found in the central and peripheral nervous systems, spinal and paraspinal regions, and kidney.

Also read: Drug-Resistant Epileptic Seizures Reduce By Over 90% With Experimental Gene Therapy

What Has The FDA Said About The Risk?

The FDA is assessing whether regulatory action is needed and is reviewing whether the long-term safety studies address the risk.

However, it stressed that the benefits of both Zolgensma and Novartis' other SMA gene therapy, Itvisma, continue to outweigh their potential risks for their approved uses.

The two therapies use the same viral vector and genetic material but are administered differently. Zolgensma is given through an intravenous infusion to children under two, while Itvisma is injected into the spinal canal and is approved for adults and children aged two and older. The FDA said no cases of tumour formation had been reported following Itvisma treatment so far.

The risk of tumour formation due to viral DNA integration is already mentioned in Zolgensma's information as a theoretical risk. The FDA said patients receiving either treatment should be monitored for tumour formation.

Also read: India Proposes Stricter Drug Rules: Tougher Quality Checks, Licence Suspension

What Novartis Said?

Novartis said the two patients whose tumours showed evidence of vector DNA integration had undergone treatment and continued to be monitored.

In a statement, the company said, “Patient safety is our priority. In each case, we timely and appropriately notified health authorities and will continue to work with them on next steps.”

The company also said it had received nine tumour reports since Zolgensma's approval and that the risk was included in the drug's prescribing information.

The disclosures have raised questions among families and patients about when the information was shared. SMA Europe urged the company to explain what is known, what remains uncertain and what the findings could mean for children who have already received treatment. Novartis did not provide details on where the two new cases were in its statement.