In 2023, there were 6.5 million Dengue Fever cases. Now the number of cases has almost doubled. There are two culprits. Firstly, mosquitoes. Dengue Fever is a disease spread by two types of mosquitoes: the yellow fever mosquito and the tiger mosquito. These mosquitoes bite humans and transmit the disease to them. But these mosquitoes have always been buzzing around, biting people, so what’s caused the number of dengue cases to double to 12.7 million?
More than four billion people are at risk of mosquito-borne infections, such as dengue and Zita. The World Health Organization (WHO) says that dengue cases have caused 8791 deaths. They say that the number of cases in Eastern Mediterranean regions has increased and cases in France, Spain, and Italy have more than doubled since last year.
Climate change is behind almost a fifth of the current dengue cases. A new study in New Orleans led by Dr. Erin Mordecai, an infectious disease ecologist at Stanford University shows that global warming is responsible for 19% of dengue incidents.
Dr. Mordecai says “We looked at data on dengue incidence and climate variation across 21 countries in Asia and the Americas and found that there is a clear and direct relationship between rising temperatures and rising infections.” The team then looked at other things that can impact dengue infection rates, such as rainfall patterns and seasonal changes, to confirm that global warming played a part in dengue infection rates. Mordecai claims that this is evidence that global warming impacts human health.
Symptoms of mild cases of dengue fever are similar to flu symptoms. Extreme cases of dengue fever can cause a drop in blood pressure, internal bleeding and organ damage, and, ultimately, death. Usually, the tiger mosquito is only found in the tropics. However, over the past few years, temperatures have increased dramatically, allowing the tiger mosquito’s range to expand. These mosquitos are highly adaptable as well. The tiger mosquito’s eggs can even survive through frost.
However, Dr. Mordecai says that if we mitigate carbon emissions, we could reduce the number of dengue cases by 18%. The WHO has launched The Global Strategic Preparedness, Readiness, and Responsibility Plan SPRP, a global strategic plan aimed at tackling dengue and other mosquito-borne viruses. This plan highlights the five key components to addressing mosquito-borne infections. The first one is emergency coordination, i.e. establishing coordination and partnerships between countries. The second component is collaborative surveillance. This means making tools to identify who has dengue in a community, analyse the infection, and study the outbreak in the area. The third one is community protection. This involves talking to communities about dengue and what they can do to prevent outbreaks. The fourth one is safe and scalable care. This means making sure there are good hospitals to treat people with mosquito-borne infections. The fifth one is access to countermeasures, i.e. developing effective vaccines for mosquito borne infections.