More humid world, more serious virulent infectious diseases

A hotter, more humid world is already becoming a world of more serious virulent infectious diseases. West Nile, dengue fever, chagas, Lyme disease, yellow fever, chikungunya, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Rift Valley fever, Japanese encephalitis and malaria are just a few of the many infectious diseases spreading far beyond their previous geographic confines.

Global temperatures aren't the only things that broke records in 2015. The number of victims of dengue fever in Brazil reached 1.58 million, an all time high, 20 times more than in 1990. Heat, precipitation and humidity augment the life cycle, reproduction and even biting activity of mosquitoes and other insects that carry these diseases. Even the viruses, bacteria and parasites carried by the insects can have their survivability exponentially enhanced by warmer temperatures.

Read the Op-Ed by Brian Moench in The Salt LakeTribune  - “Op-ed:The next threat from climate change? Mosquito-borne ‘Zika’.”