Malaria spread by global warming

Researchers warn against malaria spread in the highlands due to rising temperatures

07/03/2014

Around 300 million people suffer from malaria each year. Especially for babies and toddlers, the infectious disease transmitted by the female Anopheles mosquito can quickly kill without treatment. the „World Malaria Report“ According to the WHO, around half a million children die each year from malaria.

Because the carrier mosquitoes require high temperatures to reproduce, the disease is prevalent in Africa, South America and Southeast Asia. Researchers recently discovered that the tropical disease will spread even further in the future. So far, people have been protected because of the lower temperatures in the highlands. However, global warming is leading to malaria spreading in higher regions, the researchers report.

People are also affected in the highlands of malaria
Global warming could lead to a serious spread of malaria. This is reported by Mercedes Pascual from the University of Michigan and her team in the trade magazine „Science“. For example, warmer years were associated with a more frequent occurrence of the disease in the higher regions of Ethiopia and Colombia.

The researchers analyzed the changes in temperature and malaria infections over a period of more than ten years in high-altitude villages. Data were analyzed from 1990 to 2005 for 124 municipalities in the Antioquia region of West Colombia, and from 1993 to 2005 for 159 municipalities around Debre Zeyit in Ethiopia. „Malaria is almost always climbing up when a year is warmer, "reports Pascual. „If temperatures in the affected regions increase by only one degree, hundreds of thousands more malaria infections could occur on both continents than previously expected, "the researchers said.

Dozens of millions of people live in the high areas that were previously considered malaria free. Now the disease could also spread rapidly there. In the highlands, temperatures are lower, so that the carrier mosquitoes are difficult to reproduce and therefore can hardly infect humans. At below 15 degrees Celsius, the pathogen Plasmodium vivax can no longer multiply. „The parasite is quasi running one race over time, as its evolution slows down in the cold, "says Pascual.

Researchers call for sustainable action to reduce malaria in the highlands
„Our latest research shows that with increasing global warming, malaria will also reach the mountains and spread to new altitudes. And because this population does not have a protective immune response, it will be particularly susceptible to disease and high mortality“, explains Menno Bouma, co-author of the study. Researchers call for the expansion of disease control strategies. „Our findings underscore the magnitude of the problem and emphasize the need for sustainable interventions in these regions, especially in Africa, "Pascual explains.

The study is the „first hard proof "that malaria occurs in warmer years even at altitudes that were previously unaffected." In colder years, the tropical disease spread only in deeper areas, the University of Michigan wrote in a statement.