Climate Changeand

Vector-Borne Disease

Durland Fish, Ph.D.Yale School of Public Health

Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies

WHO-TDR PRIORITY DISEASES

DISEASE DEATHS DALYS*

AFRICAN TRYPANOSOMIASIS 50,000 1,585DENGUE 12,000 433LEISHMANIASIS 41,000 1,810MALARIA 1,080,000 40,213SCHISTOSOMIASIS 11,000 1,713TUBERCULOSIS 1,660,000 35,792CHAGAS DISEASE 21,000 680LEPROSY 2,000 141LYMPHATIC FILARIASIS 0 5,549ONCHOCERCIASIS 0 951

Remme, et al. 2002 TRENDS in Parasitology *Disability-adjusted life years x 1,000

WHO-TDR PRIORITY DISEASES

DISEASE DEATHS DALYS*

AFRICAN TRYPANOSOMIASIS 50,000 1,585DENGUE 12,000 433LEISHMANIASIS 41,000 1,810MALARIA 1,080,000 40,213SCHISTOSOMIASIS 11,000 1,713TUBERCULOSIS 1,660,000 35,792CHAGAS DISEASE 21,000 680LEPROSY 2,000 141LYMPHATIC FILARIASIS 0 5,549ONCHOCERCIASIS 0 951

Remme, et al. 2002 TRENDS in Parasitology *Disability-adjusted life years x 1,000

GLOBAL EMERGING DISEASES*

EMERGINGRE-EMERGING

VECTOR-BORNE

* Modified from Morens et al. 2004 Nature 430:242

WEST NILE VIRUS TRANSMISSION CYCLE

APOCALYPSE NOTGary Taubes, Science 1997 278:1004-6.

McMichael, Patz & Epstein: "climate change is likely to have wide-ranging and mostly adverse impacts on human health, with significant loss of life.“

Duane Gubler: "gloom and doom" speculations based on "soft

data.“… "probably the most blatant disregard for other factors that influence disease transmission."

D.A. Henderson: “a lot of simplistic thinking, which seems to ignore the fact that as climate changes, man changes as well.”

The Independent (UK) 17 April 2007

“in all the studies we have discussed supporting linkages between climate change and malaria, there is neither a unique climatic

pattern nor a unique climate variable associated with the disease”.

MALARIA

18561870

YELLOW FEVER

Walther et al. NATURE |VOL 416 | 28 MARCH 2002 |www.nature.com

Ecological responses to recent climate change

Genetic shift in photoperiodic response correlated with global warming

William E. Bradshaw and Christina M. Holzapfel

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2001 December 4; 98(25): 14509–14511.

Under the Weather: Climate, Ecosystems, and Infectious Disease

National Research Council 2001

• Research to understand the relationship between climate and infectious disease is in its infancy and needs to be strengthened.

• Interdisciplinary research centers should be established to

foster collaboration between scientists in fields such as epidemiology, climatology, and ecology.

• Federal health agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease should become actively involved.

Vectorborne and Zoonotic Diseases—Disease risk may increase as a result of climate change due to related expansions in vector ranges, shortening of pathogen incubation periods, and disruption and relocation of large human populations. Research should enhance the existing pathogen/vector control infrastructure including vector and host identification; integrate human with terrestrial and aquatic animal health surveillance systems; incorporate ecological studies to provide better predictive models; and improve risk communication and prevention strategies.

The federal government should provide technical and scientific resources that are currently lacking at the local or regional scale, incentives for local and state authorities to begin adaptation planning, guidance across jurisdictions, shared lessons learned, and support of scientific research to expand knowledge of impacts and adaptation.

Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change

May 18, 2010