Drastic environmental and climate change, including global warming, is contributing to the spread of infectious diseases. Warming has a direct impact on the state of water resources. The permafrost is degrading, the number of floods is increasing, and wetlands are becoming more widespread. This leads to an increasing number of mosquitoes, which transmit diseases such as malaria and dengue fever (DW News, 2012). Therefore, as a result of global warming, humanity could face a new outbreak of malaria.
Another significant risk factor for a new malaria outbreak in the US is increased travel of people from endemic regions to the US and increased migration of people from endemic regions to the US. Both of these situations are dangerous primarily because people in malaria-endemic areas may develop partial immunity, in which infections occur without symptoms (Bannister-Tyrrell et al., 2017). Therefore, a person from a malaria-endemic area may not be aware of the disease and still arrive in the USA. Consequently, they can infect many people because people in the US have no immunity to malaria. After all, it is not an endemic area initially.
In addition to global warming and the migration of people from endemic areas to the US, government policies regarding the protection of wetlands are a risk factor for a malaria outbreak. Too much wetland is a risk factor for the occurrence of large numbers of mosquitoes, which carry malaria (Your Morning, 2019). Therefore, the state’s policy regarding the protection of wetlands should be moderate and aimed not to increase the number of wetlands but to keep the existing wetlands clean. In clean water bodies, the risk of malarial mosquito population emergency is much lower.
References
Bannister-Tyrrell, M., Verdonck, K., Hausmann-Muela, S., Gryseels, C., Ribera, J. M., & Grietens, K. P. (2017). Defining micro-epidemiology for malaria elimination: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Malaria Journal, 16(164), 135-163. Web.
DW News. (2012). Climate change and malaria | short version | Global ideas. YouTube. Web.
Your Morning. (2019). How global warming is causing more cases of mosquito-born diseases | Your morning. YouTube. Web.
