Mosquito viruses shift as climate change worsens

The outbreak of Zika virus has refocused the attention of health authorities on mosquito-borne disease. The virus has now been reported from almost 40 countries and the list is growing with imported cases of the disease popping up across the globe, from Norway to north Queensland.

Notwithstanding the millions of cases of disease predicted to occur this year, the ever strengthening link between Zika virus and birth defects is cause for ongoing concern.

Zika virus may be in the headlines but the burden of other mosquito-borne diseases, such as dengue fever, should not be overlooked.

Read the piece on The Conversation by a clinical lecturer and Principal Hospital Scientist at the University of Sydney, Cameron Webb - “New mosquito threats shift risks from our swamps to our suburbs.”

(As climate change worsens and Earth’s temperature rises, so does the spread of mosquito-borne viruses. The chill of winter that would mostly stop those viruses in their tracks is little-by-little vanishing and as the mosquitos find more areas in which they can survive, and are comfortable, so does the spread of the viruses they carry – Robert McLean.)