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LONDON (THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION) – An additional one billion people, particularly in North America and Europe, may be exposed to mosquito-borne viruses, including dengue and Zika, by 2080 if the climate continues to heat up at current rates, researchers said Thursday, March 28.
Preventing this expansion of life-threatening diseases will require not only vigilant health authorities, but also quick action to tackle climate change and limit global warming, they said.
The spread of mosquito-borne viruses can "lead to a loss of productivity at work, among other things, which will essentially lead to economic decline in the areas where they take off," said Sadie Ryan, lead author of the study, Thursday at PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.
The badysis followed the expected evolution of two of the most prevalent disease-carrying mosquitoes, Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, by examining the expected future temperatures to estimate risks between 2050 and 2080.
Moquites can carry viruses, including dengue, chikungunya, and zika, which can in some cases be fatal or have other debilitating effects.
These include haemorrhagic fever with repeated exposure to dengue fever and conbad microcephaly in some cases of Zika exposure, said Sadie Ryan, lead author of the study and a professor of medical geography at the University of Florida.
Vaccinations do not yet exist for Zika or chikungunya and only a few are in the trial phase for dengue treatment, said Colin Carlson, another lead author of the badysis. .
"The first line of defense against these diseases has never been vaccination," said Carlson, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Biology at Georgetown University.
"Overall, it is much easier for us to prevent mosquitoes or viruses from manifesting themselves somewhere than to prevent an epidemic once it has already begun," he said. -he adds.
People at risk can help reduce the threat by taking action such as using insect aerosol, installing mosquito nets on windows, and removing excess water and waste from home. said Carlson.
But the most effective way to limit the spread of disease is to fight climate change and further develop global programs to detect and limit the spread of mosquitoes, he said.
"If the climate does not change, it will limit much of the place where these mosquitoes can go," said Carlson.
NEW POPULATIONS AT RISK
To project the number of people at risk, scientists have combined a temperature-sensitive transmission model with different emissions scenarios based on climate change predictions, Ryan said.
The resulting data was superimposed on population models, and the researchers examined how regional changes could increase susceptibility to viruses, she said.
By combining the data, it has been suggested that mosquitoes could proliferate or decline – and how many people would be at risk in the future, the researchers said.
"What this essentially gives us is the ability to say where can we expect these things to appear, to establish, to invade, and perhaps even to have epidemics occur," he said. Ryan said.
"This gives us somehow an interesting management tool to say: 'Here's where we'll see these potential risk increases, so let's start monitoring, think about managing things there,' she said. declared.
Almost all scenarios predict increased risk in North America, Europe and East Asia, Carlson said.
"A few degrees of warming will help mosquitoes start spreading dengue fever in these places," he said.
Carlson added that in areas where many people live, mostly densely populated urban centers, many people may be exposed to these viruses for the first time in their lives – a particular concern.
"People who have never faced these diseases previously have not developed immunity," he said. "And so we are very worried that they will have much bigger outbreaks when these pathogens manifest themselves for the first time."
In the worst emissions scenario, where the Earth will heat up to 8.5 ° C by the end of the 20th century, more and more people will likely be infected with mosquito-borne viruses, Ryan said.
The results of the badysis, Ryan added, finally made clear the importance of reducing carbon emissions, through measures such as the abandonment of fossil fuels, as soon as possible.
Without this, "it's really one of our biggest threats to global security," she said.
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