- NEW YORK (Reuters
Health) - Climate change associated with global warming is already increasing
the spread of infectious diseases, researchers at the New York University
School of Medicine maintain. They predict that worldwide climate shifts
will create growing threats to public health if not reversed.
-
- ``Warming will change the distribution of disease-carrying
agents, which will in turn bring the specter of diseases wiped out decades
ago to possible prominence,'' Dr. William N. Rom told Reuters Health.
-
- Rom and Dr. Dushana Yoganathan, writing in the August
issue of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, note that extreme
weather events lead to increases in populations of microbes such as bacteria,
while atmospheric ozone depletion has been linked to an increased susceptibility
among hosts to these microbes.
-
- They point to increases in mosquito-borne infections
like malaria and dengue fever, as well as certain rodent-borne viruses,
as possible risks the world faces.
-
- ``Warming will increase the tropical zones around the
equator to higher latitudes, bringing with it changes in vegetation and
distribution of disease vectors,'' Rom noted. ''This is early in the medical
debate because these vectors and disease distributions are always oscillatory
as it is, but we're looking at long-term trends, and this is a hypothetical
that has a good chance of happening.''
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- SOURCE: American Journal of Industrial Medicine 2001;40:199-210.
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