If the United States thought it had eradicated malaria for at least two decades. Nothing is less certain for those to come: as the Washington PostFlorida and other areas of the country are now on alert for a resurgence of the disease, imported as it should be by mosquitoes.
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The return of malaria in the United States
In June alone, five cases of locally transmitted malaria were recorded in Texas and Florida, two regions of the United States particularly affected by global warming and rising temperatures.
The cases are the first in twenty years and raise fears that mosquito-borne diseases will claim even more lives in the months and years to come. Indeed, according to SD FernandoProfessor in the Department of Parasitology at the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka, “climate change will increase the risk of transmission in traditionally malarious regions, in those where the disease has been brought under control, as well as in new regions that were hitherto spared”.
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For now, scientists do not fully attribute these cases to global warming, Florida and Texas are already considered “at risk” areas. They are, for the time being, the symptom of the displacement of mosquitoes outside their usual regions. “Climate change is causing the ranges of mosquitoes to expand” said Sadie Ryan, professor of medical geography at the University of Florida in Washington Post.
A distribution according to temperature and climate
Mosquitoes, like all insects, are cold blooded and depend on ambient temperature to maintain their body temperature. They especially thrive at temperatures up to 35 degrees Celsius and love moist air.
Although fond of heat, not all mosquitoes thrive in the same conditions. “The Anopheles mosquito carries malaria, and the Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes carry diseases such as dengue fever and chikungunya. A. aegypti thrives in higher temperatures than A. albopictus” explains the Washington Post.
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The diseases transmitted therefore differ according to the regions and their rate of warming. According a study published on Nature in 2019, “Both species are expected to expand into the northern United States over the next 30 years. By 2050, A. aegypti may expand its range into the mid-Atlantic and Midwest; l ‘A. albopictus could reach Michigan and Minnesota’.
High temperatures… but not too much either
In the United States, many areas are already seeing an increase in mosquito infestation and especially “mosquito days” due to rising temperatures. According a report by the NGO Climate Centralbetween 1979 and 2022, many parts of the country saw an increase in the number of days when temperature and humidity were more habitable areas for mosquitoes.
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But like all animals, mosquitoes also do not like high temperatures and many mosquito-borne diseases therefore have an upper limit of transmission. “If it’s too hot, diseases like dengue fever won’t be as prevalent in the scorching tropics and will continue to move poleward” explains the Washington Post.
Very bad news for the countries spared so far but even less good news for the extremely affected areas which will instead suffer temperatures that even mosquitoes cannot withstand.
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2023-07-03 10:06:25
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