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From Ecohealth: The Human Health Impacts of Climate Change
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Rising Temperatures Linked to Increased Respiratory Deaths A Stanford scientist has spelled out for the first time the direct links between increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and increases in human mortality. Unseasonal Rains Spur Dengue Outbreak in Cambodia Dengue fever killed 407 people in Washington Post Details Coming Health Impacts Depending on where you are, this is going to be a hotter, wetter, drier, windier, calmer, dirtier, buggier or hungrier century than mankind has seen in a while. In some places, it may be deadlier, too.
Climate Seen Spreading African Disease to Europe An outbreak in Europe of an obscure disease from Warming Found Especially Harmful to Childrens' Health Global warming is likely to disproportionately harm the health of children, and politicians should launch "aggressive policies" to curb climate change, the Warming Spreads Dengue Throughout Indonesia Indonesia is on course for some 200,000 dengue fever infections this year, twice last year's total, a top health official said, adding the jump may be in part due to global warming. Warming Will Increase Mortality Rates The increase in extremely hot summers predicted by climate change models will lead to a higher death toll that will not be offset by fewer deaths during warmer winters, say researchers. Warming Spurs Surge of Dengue in Southeast Asia Southeast Asian nations are battling a surge in dengue cases, amid signs that climate change could make 2007 the worst year on record for a disease that often gets less attention than some higher-profile health risks. WHO Reiterates Health Threats from Climate Change Climate change could extend the pollen season and encourage more disease-carrying ticks in northern Europe, and allow mosquitoes to thrive in new areas of Africa and Warmer Temperatures Boost Childhood Illness Global warming will take a toll on children's health, according to a new report showing hospital admissions for fever soar as days get hotter. Temperature rises had a significant impact on the number of pre-schoolers suffering from fever and gastroenteritis. Vancouver Hit By Lethal Tropical Fungus A tropical and potentially lethal fungus that has mysteriously made a home on Canada's temperate West Coast has prompted foreign medical experts to issue a worldwide alert to doctors and tourists. CDC: Climate Change is "Largest Looming Health" Threat The "rising scientific certainty" of climate change should mobilize environmental health professionals to take aggressive action, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director said at a meeting. "Climate change is perhaps the largest looming public health challenge we face, certainly in the environmental health field," said Dr. Howard Frumkin, director of the CDC's National Center for Environmental Health. Warming Drives Spread of Frog-Killing Fungus A deadly fungal disease linked to climate change is wiping out huge numbers of amphibians in Spain and could push some species to the brink of extinction. Researchers Link Warming to Plague Climatic changes could lead to more outbreaks of bubonic plague among human populations, a study suggests. Researchers found that the bacterium that caused the deadly disease became more widespread following warmer springs and wetter summers. CO2 Gives Big Boost to Allergens Harvard researchers say that higher levels of carbon dioxide will boost pollen production, causing allergy sufferers to suffer even more in the future. Just last week, Duke University researchers reported that rising atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide will likely fuel the growth of a more poisonous form of poison ivy. Scientists Underestimated Spread of Climate-Driven Diseases "Things we projected to occur in 2080 are happening in 2006. What we didn't get is how fast and how big it is, and the degree to which the biological systems would respond," said Dr. Paul Epstein, of Harvard Medical School, adding: "Our mistake was in underestimation." Climate Change Futures CLIMATE CHANGE FUTURES (Nov. 2005) New report by Swiss Reinsurance details the human and ecological health impacts of global climate change: http://www.climatechangefutures.org/pdf/CCF_Report_Final_10.27.pdf Impacts of Climate Change on Human and Ecological Health "We may be underestimating the breadth of biologic responses to changes in climate. . . Treating climate-related ills will require preparation, and early-warning systems . . . But primary prevention would require halting the extraction, mining, transport, refining, and combustion of fossil fuels" -- New England Journal of Medicine Warming Seen Behind Cruise Ship Illnesses Warming ocean waters may have tainted Alaskan oysters with a bacteria that triggered four outbreaks of illness on a cruise ship among people who ate the shellfish raw, researchers reported on Wednesday. "The rising temperatures of ocean water seem to have contributed to one of the largest known outbreaks of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in the United States," said one health official. Cholera Spread Tied to Warming An analysis of four decades of disease records from Bangladesh shows that periods of extreme rainfall, drought or high temperatures can sharply increase cholera rates, a pattern that some researchers believe bolsters claims that global warming will increase disease outbreaks. Warming Waters Drives New Diseases in Alaska A warmer-than-normal summer in 2004 heated coastal waters off Alaska, causing a bloom in an infectious bacteria. Health officials tested the bacterium strains found in Alaska oysters and in the sick people. They matched, strongly suggesting that the bacteria in the oysters were linked to the human illness. Extreme Winter Triggers Severe Red Tide Outbreak Scientists and state officials say the worst outbreak of Red Tide in New England's history was probably caused by an unusually cold and wet winter and spring which brought in algae-nourishing nutrients from the sea. Malaria Seen Quadrupling in South Africa Climate change will quadruple the number of South Africans at risk from malaria by 2020, bringing the mosquito-borne disease south towards the country's commercial heartland, a minister said. Environmental Change Spawns New Diseases Changes to the environment that are sweeping the planet are bringing about a rise in infectious diseases, the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) has warned. GHGs Fuel Asthma Epidemic Poor and minority children are likely to develop asthma at worsening rates due to global warming and air pollution. Environment experts released a report showing that as the climate gets warmer, allergens such as pollen and mold will flood the air, interacting with urban pollutants such as ozone and soot to fuel an already growing epidemic of asthma. WHO: Millions Will Be Made Sick by By Climate Impacts The health of millions will be damaged if world temperatures continue to rise as a result of climate change, says the World Health Organization. Increasing temperatures will aid the spread of water-borne diseases, and those carried by insects, it predicts. Even a rise of a few degrees could expose hundreds of millions more people to the threat of malaria, say experts. In addition, changes to rainfall patterns, could damage agriculture, plunging millions into malnutrition. WHO: Warming Claims 160,000 Lives A Year About 160,000 people die every year from side-effects of global warming ranging from malaria to malnutrition and the numbers could almost double by 2020, a group of scientists said yesterday. The study, by scientists at the World Health Organization (WHO) and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said children in developing nations seemed most vulnerable. Climate Drives Spread of Sheep Disease A killer sheep disease as dangerous as foot-and-mouth but previously confined to Africa has jumped into Europe and is heading steadily north as the climate warms. Bluetongue disease, which is carried by midges, weakens blood vessels causing heavy hemorrhaging and blindness, making it hard for the sheep to feed, see or move. "This is almost certainly caused by climate change," said one researcher, adding that with every one degree rise in temperature, the midge expanded its range 90 km further north. Cold, Wet Spring brings New Surge of Lyme Disease to Massachusetts Massachusetts residents may be facing the riskiest summer ever for contracting Lyme disease, doctors warn, because the cold, wet spring has dramatically boosted the population of deer ticks that carry the bacteria that causes the debilitating condition. Statewide, the number of people infected with Lyme disease has almost tripled since 1998. WNV Found in 24 States U.S. health officials reported that the West Nile virus had resurfaced in two dozen states, but they stopped short of predicting another record outbreak of the deadly mosquito-borne disease. West Nile has been detected in birds, horses and mosquitoes in at least 24 states so far this year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has tracked the virus since it first emerged in the United States in 1999. No human cases have been reported this year. (June, 2003). Human Activities Trigger Explosion of Infectious Diseases The nation's top scientists say that environmental, economic, social and scientific changes have helped to trigger an unprecedented explosion of more than 35 new infectious diseases that have burst upon the world in the past 30 years. The U.S. death rate from infectious disease, which dropped in the first part of the 20th century and then stabilized, is now double what it was in 1980.
"Preventable" Malaria Killing 3,000 African Children A Day Malaria is killing some 3,000 African children each day, say UN officials, but this devastating impact could be curtailed if the international community was more committed to the cause.
WNV Decimating Bird Populations in Midwest West Nile virus, blamed for dozens of human deaths and more than 1,500 cases of illness, is also taking a toll on avian wildlife in a wide section of the United States from Minnesota south to the Gulf of Mexico and from Nebraska east to Ohio, experts say. A September survey by the National Audubon Society's Chicago region found that crows, which are normally noisy and visible birds, are almost completely absent from parts of the Chicago area. Audubon Monitors also reported unusual numbers of dead or ailing birds of many species. Some West Nile Victims Show Polio Symptoms Mosquito-borne West Nile virus is causing a medical condition rarely seen by US physicians since the 1950s: polio. In case reports released yesterday, stunned neurologists in Mississippi and Georgia describe the conditions of four patients suffering from the hobbled limbs, impaired breathing, and fevers that are the hallmark of polio, a disease essentially eradicated in the United States. WHO warns of Dengue Fever Pandemic The World Health Organisation said this week that 2002 was shaping up to be a bad year for dengue fever and urged governments and individuals to protect against the mosquitoes which spread the infection. West Nile Spreads to Younger Victims -- Heat Seen As Factor The arrival of chilly temperatures in Massachusetts this week signaled the approaching end of this year's West Nile virus season, the deadliest since the mosquito-borne disease arrived in the state two years ago. In 2002, West Nile killed three people in Massachusetts and left 18 seriously ill, with state health authorities cautioning that a few more cases may still be confirmed. Warming Will Lead To A Sicker Planet From coral reefs to rainforests, diseases are spreading among marine and land animals including humans and global warming appears to be a major factor, researchers reported Thursday in the journal Science. The study, said to be the first to analyze disease epidemics across entire plant and animal systems, bolsters climate models that have factored in the possibility of a warmer earth creating a sicker planet. Warm Winter Yields Bumper Crop of Allergies There's something in the spring air, and it's making lots of people miserable. Thanks to an unusually warm winter, trees in New England are releasing their pollen early - and delivering a bumper crop of sneezes, drippy noses, and watery eyes to allergy sufferers. CO2 Rise Triggers 61 percent More Pollen Rising carbon dioxide levels associated with global warming could lead to an increase in the incidence of allergies to ragweed and other plants by mid-century. Harvard researchers found that ragweed grown in an atmosphere with double the current carbon dioxide levels produced 61 percent more pollen than normal. Such a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide is expected to occur between 2050 and 2100. Researchers See Malaria in U.K. by 2050 Large parts of southern England and Wales are at risk from malaria, scientists have calculated. They say that the disease is most likely to take hold in river estuaries and low-lying wetlands. Researchers at Durham University, commissioned by the Department of Health, used a mathematical model to predict how global warming will increase the threat of malaria in coming years. Lancet: Climate Change Is Bio-Terrorism Climate change, as with terrorism, cannot be remedied by nations acting alone. Climate change is biopolitical terrorism. Just as they are uniting against geopolitical terrorism, the major industrialised countries must devise workable international efforts to reduce the build-up of greenhouse gases, in cohort with the industries that cause the problem. Warming Linked to Genetic Change in Mosquitoes The genetic switch that tells the tiny pitcher-plant mosquito when to bed down for the winter has shifted -- in what scientsts call the first example of a change in a genetically-based function that has been directly related to changes in seasonality. Pollen Rise Attributed to Warming Experts say a growing number of studies show that global warming is probably one of the reasons a lot more people are sneezing and wheezing. The reason: longer growing seasons and increased levels of carbon dioxide stimulate more pollen production. Encephalitis Jump in Sweden Attributed to Warming Milder weather in Sweden in recent years, possibly linked to global warming, has led to a sharp rise in the number of cases of tick-borne encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain, scientists said. The research at Stockholm University in Sweden showed that the rise in average temperatures during the last 40 years had provided fertile breeding conditions for the parasites that carry a virus which causes brain inflammation in humans, which, in a few cases, can be fatal. Heating Spurs Surge of Diseases Computer models indicate that many diseases will surge as the earths atmosphere heats up. Signs of the predicted troubles have begun to appear, according to an article in the August, 2000 issue of Scientific American. Climate Impacts could "Overwhelm" British Health Service Health impacts from climate change in the U.K., including malaria, heat-deaths, and other illnesses, could overwhelm the British National Health Service. Extreme Weather Causes Record US Flight Delays US air traffic delays soared to a record last year, with late operations up 20 percent over 1999, the government said yesterday. The Federal Aviation Administration attributed the increased delays and cancellations to poor weather conditions and more flights. West Nile Spreads From Bird To Bird Scientists have confirmed that the West Nile Virus can be transmitted from bird to bird, without a mosquito intermediary. The new finding suggests that controversial attempts to control the spread of the disease with pesticides may be ineffective. It also raises the specter of an epidemic of bird deaths across the continent. Debilitating Effects Suffered by Some WNV Survivors Most West Nile Virus survivors have told health officials that they have not recovered their strength. Others say they are still so shellshocked that they are afraid to venture outdoors, and they are unwilling to talk about what happened. Roughly half of those over 60 reported serious difficulties with fatigue and muscle weakness and have been unable to perform basic tasks like driving, riding the subway or doing household chores USDA ties Warming to Hay Fever Rise Does your sneezing and hayfever seem to be getting worse each year? Blame global warming. Researchers with the U.S. Agriculture Department said that higher carbon dioxide (CO2) levels linked to gradually increasing temperatures on earth may also be responsible for doubling the amount of ragweed pollen during the past four decades. NY Officials Fear Lyme Disease Increase The ticks that spread Lyme disease could be abundant this year in the wake of two mild winters. ''Personally, I expect a horrendous year,'' said David Weld, executive director of the American Lyme Disease Foundation in Westchester County. Weld said the deer ticks can more easily thrive after the mild winters. The recent wet spell could also increase the number of surviving ticks, said state Health Department spokeswoman Claire Pospisil. It is difficult to predict if ticks will be more prevalent this summer, Pospisil said, but ''given the conditions, this could put people at a higher risk for Lyme disease.'' Climate Change and Rift Valley Fever All known Rift Valley fever virus outbreaks in East Africa from 1950 to May 1998, and probably earlier, followed periods of abnormally high rainfall. Analysis of this record and Pacific and Indian Ocean sea surface temperature anomalies, coupled with satellite normalized difference vegetation index data, shows that prediction of Rift Valley fever outbreaks may be made up to 5 months in advance of outbreaks in East Africa. Concurrent near-real-time monitoring with satellite normalized difference vegetation data may identify actual affected areas. El Nino Breeds Cholera, Dengue, Malaria The El Nino weather phenomenon has caused a three-fold surge in the number of deaths from diarrheal disease. El Nino, the warming of the Pacific Ocean every two to seven years which leads to extreme climate changes, has been linked to outbreaks of dengue fever, malaria and cholera. Climate Change Propels the Spread of Infectious Disease Warming accelerates the breeding rates of disease-bearing insects and propels them to altitudes and latitudes which were previously too cold to support their survival. At current rates of warming, scientists estimate that mosquito-borne epidemics will double in the tropical regions and increase 100-fold in the temperate regions in the next century. The cholera epidemic of the early 1990s that infected 400,000 people just in Peru was triggered in large part by warming. Changes in the climate have promoted the emergence of a frequently lethal pulmonary virus in the southwest, the spread of a strain of Encephalitis and a striking increase in the Northeastern U.S. of tick-borne Lyme disease. WHO: Climate Change Will Harm Human Health Climate changes due to global warming could cause a host of major health problems in Europe including an increase in diseases such as malaria and encephalitis, doctors warned. They advised governments to take urgent action to minimise the impact of rising temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns which could cause flooding, disrupt water supplies and sewage disposal and cause toxic waste sites to overflow. Mosquito Outbreak Frightens New Yorkers New York's great mosquito scare has arisen from an outbreak which has hospitalized 43 people with West Nile encephalitis and killed six. The disease could spread to other regions of the country, as birds carrying it migrate south for warmer weather. First Cases of Encephalitis Strike New York City Two elderly residents of Queens died in September, 1999, from a mosquito-borne viral disease known as St. Louis encephalitis, and city health officials fear that at least nine other people have been infected.Health officials believe that the three confirmed cases are the first ever contracted in New York City. Malaria Breaks Out in Long Island In the first case of locally contracted malaria on Long Island in at least a decade, and perhaps ever, two 11-year-old boys caught the disease from mosquitoes while at a summer camp in Calverton, health officials said. Dengue Hits 5,500 in Mexico MONTERREY, Mexico -- (AP) -- Dengue fever has swept across northern Mexico near the Texas border, killing at least seven people and making thousands of others ill. About 150 have come down with the serious, sometimes-deadly form known as hemorrhagic dengue. Health Impacts of the 1997/98 El Nino The 1997/ 98 El Niño-related extreme weather events spawned "clusters" of disease outbreaks in many regions of the globe. In the Horn of Africa extensive flooding led to large outbreaks of malaria, Rift Valley fever and cholera. In Latin America, extreme weather was associated with outbreaks of malaria, dengue fever and cholera. In Indonesia and surrounding island nations, delayed monsoons and the compounding effects of local farming practices led to prolonged fires, widespread respiratory illness, and significant losses of wildlife. Extreme Events and Disease: A commentary on Rift Valley Fever Extreme weather events--unusually heavy rainfall or long periods of drought--have a profound impact on public health, particularly in developing countries. Hurricane Mitch -- nourished by a warmed Caribbean--killed more than 11,000 people and caused damage exceeding $5 billion. The intense precipitation and flooding associated with the hurricane spawned a cluster of disease outbreaks, including cholera, a waterborne disease, and malaria and dengue fever, transmitted by mosquitoes that flourish under these conditions. Harnessing climate data to better forecast future disease outbreaks should enable preventive action to be taken. Encephalitis Spreads in Russian Summer Heat Searing summer temperatures in Russia have brought a new threat -- a proliferation of ticks carrying a deadly encephalitis virus. Already a score of people have died from the disease and tens of thousands have consulted doctors after being bitten by the ticks. CDC: Extreme Weather Fuels Hantavirus Rise U.S. cases of an often-fatal respiratory illness first recognised in 1993 rose sharply in 1999 because weather conditions allowed the mice that most often spread the disease to flourish. By June, 1999, the disease had surfaced in 30 states. Melting Ice Caps Could Release Deadly Viruses Deadly prehistoric viruses may be frozen beneath the polar icecaps and could unleash epidemics if they are released into the atmosphere, according to researchers. After Mitch, Honduras reels from deadly disease spread TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras Six weeks ago, it was the violent winds and torrential rains of Hurricane Mitch that sent millions in this country running for shelter. Then came the grisly task of digging out bodies and the counting of displaced families. Now, this small, impoverished Central American country is battling an array of deadly diseases and infections that could kill as many people as the storm itself. Milder Winters Spur More Lyme Disease Tick populations are growing in some parts of the Northeast thanks in part to two mild winters and a damp early spring. For two decades or so, every year has been a heavy one for deer ticks, with their numbers and access to human hosts continuing to increase as development creeps ever farther into the woods. Warming Oceans Threaten Human Health Previously unknown bacteria and viruses blooming in the
Earth's warming oceans are killing some marine life and threatening human
health. Dying coral, diseased shellfish and warming waters
are infected with human viruses as the seas' temperature rises and pollution from
the land intensifies.
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