Climate Change and Vector-Borne Diseases
Are climate change and vector-borne diseases related? The short answer is yes, they are. Let's explore the relationship between climate change and vector-borne illnesses, along with how an increase in the prevalence of these diseases might affect you and your family as you go about your daily lives.
What Is a Vector in Biology, and What Are Vector-Borne Diseases?
First, let’s look at the term "vector” and its definition as it relates to biology. Simply put, vectors are organisms that spread diseases. So, what does “vector-borne” mean? A vector-borne disease is one that comes from vectors. When it comes to infectious illnesses, insects and arthropods (invertebrate species with an exoskeleton, including insects like mosquitoes) are the most common living vectors.
In North America and elsewhere, the female Aedes aegypti mosquito is a particularly dangerous potential vector, responsible for the transmission of sicknesses like dengue, chikungunya and Zika to human beings. These mosquitoes are nicknamed “yellow fever mosquitoes” because of their ability to infect people with potentially fatal yellow fever viruses.
Vectors typically need warm - and often humid and moist - environmental conditions in order to thrive, stay active and reproduce in large numbers. But how does climate change affect vector-borne illnesses?
Defining Climate Change
First, let’s provide a definition of the term “climate change” for this discussion. The global climate has always been changing, from hotter periods to ice ages and everything in between. With the onset of human industrial activity, however, these natural changes have had a massive input from our species, causing large-scale changes to take place at extraordinary rates. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and NASA, "the current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is extremely likely (greater than 95% probability) to be the result of human activity since the mid-20th century and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented over decades to millennia."
But exactly how do humans contribute to climate change? The short answer is that the atmosphere currently contains more carbon dioxide than at any time within the past 400,000 years. This influx of carbon dioxide can be tied to human activities, including deforestation and burning fossil fuels. This has led to a rapid increase in overall global temperatures over the past 40 to 50 years. While it might be colder than usual where you live due to how the weather patterns or ocean currents have shifted, the planet’s temperature as a whole is rising.
Climate Change and Vector-Borne Diseases
Vectors (like Aedes aegypti), and vector-borne diseases by extension, tend to flourish in warmer climates. As the range of these pests increases due to warming trends, they can migrate to higher latitudes, colonizing areas that were too cold for them in the past - or at least cold enough to limit their annual activity. More active, widely spread vectors mean more opportunity for them to spread dangerous pathogens.
In the case of the U.S., this translates to vectors like mosquitoes moving northward from southern regions like Texas and Florida. As states with cooler average yearly temperatures heat up, even if only by a small amount, this provides an opening for vectors to move in or extend their breeding season and increase their presence.
How Can You Protect Yourself from Vector-Borne Disease Transmission?
The systems supporting and affecting the global climate in general are incredibly complex - and so are the systems affecting climate change. That said, as we’ve discussed, climate change and vector-borne diseases are indeed related - and it is predicted that their impacts will continue to increase. Arthropods are set to take advantage of warming temperatures, reproducing in more and more places they weren’t able to access before.
This is why health officials and companies like MosquitoNix®® are paying close attention to changes in our climate and the spread of vectors like the Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes. At MosquitoNix®, it’s important to us that we offer the most effective mosquito control services possible in the face of these changes so you can help protect yourself and your family.
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