Climate change sparks fears of malaria spread

Source: Agencies  |   2008-11-21  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

SOUTHEAST Asia and South Pacific island nations are facing a growing threat from malaria and dengue fever as climate change spreads mosquitoes that carry the diseases and climate-change refugees start to migrate.

A new report titled "The Sting of Climate Change" says recent data suggests that since the 1970s climate change had contributed to 150,000 more deaths every year from disease, with over half of the deaths in Asia.

"Projections of the impact of climate change on malaria and dengue are truly eye-opening," said the Lowy Institute report released in Sydney yesterday.

According to the World Health Organization, rising temperatures and higher rainfall caused by climate change will see the number of mosquitoes increasing in cooler areas where there is little resistance or knowledge of the diseases they carry.

The Lowy report said early modeling predicted malaria prevalence could be 1.8 to 4.8 times greater in 2050 than 1990. The share of the world's population living in malaria-endemic zones could also grow from 45 percent to 60 percent by the end of the century. By 2085, an estimated 52 percent of the world's population, or about 5.2 billion people, will be living in areas at risk of dengue.

The report also said diseases will spread once climate change forces people to flee their homes in low-lying islands or coastal land swamped by rising sea levels.

For example, in the Pacific nation of Tuvalu, a ring of nine Polynesian islands, several thousand people have already left for New Zealand because of rising seas.

"The number of environmental refugees as a whole may reach 50 million by 2010, with small, low-lying island populations at the greatest risk. Displaced people from lowland areas could well provide the human reservoir for the spread of malaria and dengue," said the report.