“We expect more small outbreaks of infectious diseases that we still consider tropical,” says Professor Martin Grobusch, head of the Center for Tropical Medicine and Travel Medicine at Amsterdam UMC.
He immediately adds: “New tropical diseases may sound exciting, and it is undoubtedly expected to happen, but this will not be our most pressing problem when we talk about climate change.”
West Nile virus and malaria
“We already have cases of West Nile virus in our country, and we will also see dengue and other mosquito-borne diseases in the future,” Grobusch said. “Even malaria seems possible. Perhaps not on a large scale, but as a local outbreak.”
Professor Marion Koopmans, head of the Viroscience department at Erasmus MC, agrees: “We are indeed seeing small outbreaks, but making direct links with climate change is not easy.”
The risk of vector-borne diseases (diseases that can be transmitted by mosquitoes or ticks, for example) is increasing, says Koopmans. “You see that a combination of a higher temperature and higher humidity is important for these infections. Warming will make life easier for those vectors, the mosquitoes. Drier summers are unfavorable for the mosquitoes, so it is not very easy to to predict.”
Mosquitoes
Mosquitoes can transmit various diseases. The West Nile virus, Dengue fever, yellow fever, Zika and malaria are some of those diseases.
But according to Koopmans, not only diseases transmitted by mosquitoes pose a risk. She also points out the risks of natural phenomena such as floods, which may become more common due to climate change.
“A large category of infectious diseases can be transmitted via water and food. If the sewers overflow due to extreme weather, this will affect the environment,” says Koopmans. “You also have a greater risk of food infections, for example.”
Recognize diseases
The risk of these types of diseases is therefore increasing, but major outbreaks of, for example, dengue or the West Nile virus can be prevented here, says Grobusch. It is important that general practitioners have started to recognize symptoms of infectious diseases – which are still exotic – more quickly. Or better said: start recognizing again, Grobusch notes.
Grobusch: “Two or three generations ago, every general practitioner in Friesland would recognize malaria. The last local case dates from 1958. It was only 50 years ago that the Netherlands was no longer seen as a malaria-endemic area by the WHO.”
Rising sea levels
Koopmans conducts research with the Pandemic and Disaster Center into the changes we can expect in the landscape as a result of climate change. “With a falling groundwater level and rising sea level, you see an increasingly wider strip of land becoming salinized,” she says.
“In addition, there are plans for more water buffer areas and wetlands to prevent flooding. These will occur more often as global warming increases. These are conditions in which malaria mosquitoes, for example, thrive.”
Yet, says Grobusch, we should not blindly focus on the arrival of tropical diseases in the Netherlands. “This is not yet the biggest problem, and it will not be our biggest problem in the Netherlands in connection with climate change. We should not worry about an increase in transmissible infectious diseases,” says the professor. “But we do have every reason to to lie awake thinking about how we can combat climate change.”
2023-10-29 08:49:32
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