Blog 2 Climate Change Prompts Debate Among Experts About Spread of Tropical Diseases

Rachel Harper

28 Jan 2011

4:53pm

A debatable topic of a malaria outbreak across the eastern United States and Europe by the year 2020 stimulated The John Hopkins Malaria Research Institute in Baltimore. Insects are raised, infected with malaria-killing bacteria and sent out to live and breed around African villages. This group is led by Marcelo Jacob-Lorena who plans to use the human engineering to reverse what he believes got us into this mess in the first place. The stem of all the controversy started with Harvard biologist Paul R. Epstein and a Scientific American malaria map, which elevated a signal about global warming on the spread of infectious diseases. “The earlier models did not take into account the dramatic increase in extreme weather that we’re seeing today, “said Epstein. Some opinions seem to think instead of global expansion of infectious disease, climate change will alter the course of outbreaks. Also, climate change is not the only culprit, but humans are responsible for the exponential growth of infectious-disease patterns as well. Malaria, dengue fever and yellow fever were present as early as the 20th century. Due to more advanced sanitation, public health awareness the diseases seemed to fade away.
The impact of climate change on health status varies from developing versus industrialized countries. Developing countries are more than likely dealing with rising temperatures and humidity that may have aided the spread of infectious diseases including malaria, dengue( predominantly in a portion of Asia, South and Central America) and others as well. Industrialized countries face increasing climate changes. With the ease of international travel it is easier to spread infectious diseases to the developed world. No communication between countries about each other’s experiences leaves open a door to increasing prevalence of and mortality from these infectious diseases with several negative consequences: decreasing economic productivity, rising medical costs, and taxing already tenuous health care systems in poor countries. If climate change is affecting disease rates, the stability of the world we once relied on will no longer be a safe haven.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/10/AR2011011006063.html