Institute For The Future

Climate change and public health

This Reuters headline--"Climate change seen aiding spread of deadly diseases"--brought back memories of our Green Health map and conference.  In 2003, the World Health Organization published a report on  climate change as a significant and emerging threat to public health, noting that many important diseases (such as malaria and dengue, as well as malnutrition and diarrhea) are highly sensitive to changing temperatures

and precipitation. 

Now, the Wildlife Conservation Society has issued a list of a "deadly dozen" diseases (avian flu, tick-borne babesia, cholera, ebola, parasites, plague, lyme disease, red tides of algal blooms, Rift Valley fever, sleeping sickness, tuberculosis, and yellow fever) that are likely to spread because of climate change.  The head of the Society observes, 

 

"Even minor disturbances can have far reaching consequences on what diseases wild animals might encounter and transmit as climate changes. . . . The term 'climate change' conjures images of melting ice caps and rising sea levels that threaten coastal cities and nations, but just as important is how increasing temperatures and fluctuating precipitation levels will change the distribution of dangerous pathogens."(my emphasis)

 

This is an often overlooked ramification of climate change, but one that we are certainly aware is on the horizon.