Climate Change, Malaria and Dengue

Jul 19th 2021

This was in The Guardian about a week ago.

Climate crisis ‘may put 8bn at risk of malaria and dengue’

Climate change brings stronger storms and dryer and longer droughts, and in general makes weather extremes more frequent. But a changing climate will also help spread diseases like Malaria and Dengue fever, by lengthening their transmission periods, and probably spreading the diseases to areas where they do not appear at the moment.

And it is not only Malaria and Dengue, the list of mosquito-borne diseases also includes Zika, West Nile virus and Chikungunya, not exactly a group of benevolent diseases.

Maybe we will have a vaccine or treatment for these, but maybe we will not, or the diseases will evolve and become resistant to treatment, who knows? And what about emerging diseases like Covid-19? What if Ebola starts to spread easier?

Some people say that dealing with climate change will be too expensive, that the costs to economies will just be too high. Well, we are still counting the costs of Covid-19, which caused the deepest global recession since the end of World War II.

Are we really ready to face the costs of widespread Malaria, Dengue, Zika, West Nile, Chikungunya, or some nasty emerging disease? Not to mention the human suffering and unnecessary deaths and destruction they will bring.

Personally, in this case, I think it would be easier to deal with the cause (the climate change) than the symptoms (the diseases), but that is just my humble opinion.