Whether it’s stress and uncertainty from forced displacements from wildfires, rises in sea level, or fear and hunger from poor nutrition in places where people can’t grow food, climate change is one of Earth’s biggest threats. Recent scientific discoveries show that mosquito-induced Dengue cases are set to double in the next 25 years, especially in warmer areas like the Americas and Asia, and could potentially affect over 250 million people. “It’s evidence that climate change already has become a significant threat to human health and, for dengue in particular, our data suggests the impact could get much worse,” says Dr Erin Mordecai, an infectious disease ecologist at Stanford University.

According to  the World Health Organisation, the global public health agency for the United Nations, Dengue fever is a viral infection that spreads from mosquitoes to people. The fever is most common in tropical and subtropical climates. Imma Perfetto, a Cosmos science journalist, states that, “Mild cases of dengue may be asymptomatic or cause fever and flu-like symptoms.  Severe cases can cause serious bleeding, a sudden drop in blood pressure (shock), and death.” Currently the fever is treated with pain medication, but doesn’t have a cure.

However, there are steps being taken to reduce the problem. According to David Cox, a writer for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), cold blooded animals, such as mosquitos, can’t self regulate their body temperature. This means that the temperature of their environment determines every aspect of their lives, such as their bite rate or how fast they mature. With global warming temperatures rising, particularly favourable conditions are created for Dengue mosquitos. Early last year, Marrisa Childs, Kelsey Lyberger, Mallory Harris, Marshall Burke and Erin Mordecai who are Environmental, Biological and Economical professors and researchers at Harvard University, Stanford University and the National Bureau of Economic research, assessed the impact of temperature of dengue in the Americas and Asia. “We found that dengue incidence responds nonlinearly to temperature, increasing up to a peak at 27.8°C and declining at higher temperatures.” This means that South America, which is Dengue endemic area, could face big future risks, with risks rising by 200% in the upcoming decades. 

Preparing for the future, researchers hope that countries will do more tracking and reporting. “Since we’ve established this relationship between temperature and cases, the next step is to see how warming, both in the past and in the future, is going to affect the number of cases that we have or will see,” said Dr Kelsey Lyberger, an ecologist at Arizona State University. With the information they gather, hopefully governments, scientists and researchers can work together to help reduce the amount of people at risk of Dengue fever.