Climate Change and Infectious Disease: Is the Future Here?

Climate Change and Infectious Disease: Is the Future Here?

Climate Change and Infectious Disease

Due to increasing CO 2 emissions and other greenhouse gases, accelerated global warming is predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change (IPCC). These climate changes are anticipated to have a long-term impact on marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Rising sea levels are predicted to flood low-lying coastal regions, and fresh water resources could become scarce leading to developmen...

Infectious Diseases, Urbanization and Climate Change: Challenges in Future China

China is one of the largest countries in the world with nearly 20% of the world's population. There have been significant improvements in economy, education and technology over the last three decades. Due to substantial investments from all levels of government, the public health system in China has been improved since the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak. However, infecti...

Climate change and infectious diseases

Global changes are major determinants for infectious diseases, although attributable, part of climate change remains debatable. Vector-borne diseases are prone to be impacted by global warming, although other factors may play a substantial role, evidenced by the dramatic decrease in malaria in the last decades in places where climate change has deep and significant effects. There is now evidenc...

Climate change and infectious diseases

The previous chapter considered how short-term variations in climatic conditions and extreme weather events can exert direct effects on human death rates, physical injury, mental health and other health outcomes. Changes in mean climatic conditions and climate variability also can affect human health via indirect pathways, particularly via changes in biological and ecological processes that inf...