Climate change will put 1 billion people at risk of exposure to disease-carrying mosquitoes | Health24com
was scary? Well, get this: Global warming places up to 1 billion people worldwide at risk of exposure to disease-carrying mosquitoes over the next 50 years, new research indicates.– carry viruses such as dengue, Zika and chikungunya, plus more than a dozen others that could become larger threats in the next half-century, researchers report.
Mosquitoes carry diseases that cause millions of deaths every year, according to the World Health Organization. Dengue, Zika and chikungunya cause symptoms that include fever, rash and severe muscle aches, among others. Zika virus surfaced in Brazil in 2014 and caused severe brain damage to thousands of South American babies exposed in the womb.
"The significance of the study is we have the ability to know the threat is coming," Carlson said."The hope is that we can keep some of these viruses from getting established in the US and US territories. But any approach we take that focuses just on keeping tropical diseases out of the US and Europe is missing the bigger picture."
Dr Marci Drees is an infection prevention officer and hospital epidemiologist at Christiana Care Health System in Wilmington, Delaware, and wasn't involved in the new research. But she said she wasn't surprised by its results."I think we're all aware that as global warming and climate change happens, the habitats of these various vectors – not just mosquitoes, but ticks and others as well – are going to be expanding," Drees said.
"We now have a really good handle on what temperature is doing," he said."I want to take the leap from risk to projected burden – who's getting sick, when, and how many people."
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