United States: A fifth of all new dengue fever cases – a viral illness spread by Aedes mosquitoes – has been linked to climate change, as per recent research findings.
Projections suggest that failing to curb global warming could cause this figure to rise to 60 percent by 2050. These insights are based on data from approximately 1.5 million dengue infections reported across 21 countries in Asia and the Americas between 1993 and 2019.
Study Insights
The research focused on regions where dengue fever is endemic, meaning it recurs regularly.
Scientists evaluated various factors influencing transmission rates, such as temperature increases, shifting rainfall patterns, and population density.
Statistical analysis identified rising temperatures as the dominant factor, contributing to 19% of dengue infections, according to Live Science.
This marks the first time a causal link has been established between climate change and dengue transmission.
Expert Opinions
Stanford University biologist and study co-author Erin Mordecai highlighted that scientists have long debated how climate change impacts mosquito-borne diseases.
This research confirms that warmer temperatures accelerate mosquito growth and reproduction, increasing their ability to spread diseases like dengue.
From this, we understand that mosquitoes are cold-blooded; this is because they regulate their body temperature with the surrounding temperature.
Temperature influences the development and multiplication of mosquitoes, and the higher the temperatures, the quicker these insects grow and multiply, therefore increasing the number of pests able to bite humans and spread diseases.
In the new study, analysts concentrated on dengue since it has brief optimal temperatures, meaning that global warming shall favor the disease’s environment of transmission, experts revealed.
That works for settings where dengue already circulates and for those settings where it does not yet. Interestingly, the researchers observed that there is actually an ideal temperature for mosquitoes to infect humans with the dengue virus, livescience.com reported.
Dengue fever virus cannot replicate within mosquitoes at temperatures lower than 59 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius), for it can hardly be transmitted.