Climate Change
and
Vector-Borne Disease
Durland Fish, Ph.D.
Yale School of Public Health
Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
WHO-TDR PRIORITY DISEASES
DISEASE
AFRICAN TRYPANOSOMIASIS
DENGUE
LEISHMANIASIS
MALARIA
SCHISTOSOMIASIS
TUBERCULOSIS
CHAGAS DISEASE
LEPROSY
LYMPHATIC FILARIASIS
ONCHOCERCIASIS
DEATHS
DALYS*
50,000
12,000
41,000
1,080,000
11,000
1,660,000
21,000
2,000
0
0
1,585
433
1,810
40,213
1,713
35,792
680
141
5,549
951
Remme, et al. 2002 TRENDS in Parasitology
*Disability-adjusted life years x 1,000
WHO-TDR PRIORITY DISEASES
DISEASE
AFRICAN TRYPANOSOMIASIS
DENGUE
LEISHMANIASIS
MALARIA
SCHISTOSOMIASIS
TUBERCULOSIS
CHAGAS DISEASE
LEPROSY
LYMPHATIC FILARIASIS
ONCHOCERCIASIS
DEATHS
DALYS*
50,000
12,000
41,000
1,080,000
11,000
1,660,000
21,000
2,000
0
0
1,585
433
1,810
40,213
1,713
35,792
680
141
5,549
951
Remme, et al. 2002 TRENDS in Parasitology
*Disability-adjusted life years x 1,000
GLOBAL EMERGING DISEASES*
VECTOR-BORNE
EMERGING
RE-EMERGING
* Modified from Morens et al. 2004 Nature 430:242
WEST NILE VIRUS TRANSMISSION CYCLE
APOCALYPSE NOT
Gary 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
YELLOW FEVER
1870
1856
Ecological responses to recent climate change
Walther et al. NATURE |VOL 416 | 28 MARCH 2002 |www.nature.com
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.
May 18, 2010
Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change
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.