How global warming influences mosquito-born diseases
Researchers from Stanford University say that the ideal temperature for the spread of mosquito-born diseases like dengue, chikungunya and Zika is 29 degrees Celsius and that climate change has a great influence. Their analysis claims it can predict disease outbreaks in a warming world.
In many parts of the world, as temperature rises due to climate change, mosquito season extends past the warm summer months. In a recent paper, researchers from Stanford University created a model of how rising temperatures might influence mosquito behavior and disease risk around the world.
The researchers discovered that mosquito traits favorable to spreading disease peaked when temperatures reached 29 degrees Celsius (84 degrees Fahrenheit), but were lower when temperatures were cooler or warmer. The lead author of the study, Erin Mordecai, an assistant professor of biology, found that her predictions matched the transmission of dengue, chikungunya and Zika in people.
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“Dengue epidemics have been on the rise in the past couple decades so there’s been a growing effort trying to understand why we’re seeing more dengue, and what the relationship is between dengue transmission and climate. If we’re predicting a 29 degree optimum and another model is predicting a 35 degree optimum, the other model will say that climate change will increase transmission,” Mordecai explained.
The researcher pointing out that if temperatures are already close to the optimal temperature, infection may, in fact, go down as temperatures rise due to climate change.
The next step, according to the assistant professor at Stanford, is for researchers to build models that take climate information and make predictions about when and where to invest in vector control to try to prevent epidemics.
The paper “Detecting the impact of temperature on transmission of Zika, dengue, and chikungunya using mechanistic models” was published in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.
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