How Climate Change Is Bringing New (And Old) Diseases To Europe

The quintessential British summer brings flowers, butterflies and picnics. Some of us may worry about getting hay fever but with global temperatures continuing to rise, arboviruses or vector viruses (viruses spread by mosquitos and other arthropods) such as Western Nile fever, dengue fever, and malaria are set to hit Europe (which, regardless of Brexit, will still include the UK).

Global warming means mosquitos that would naturally have an over-winter period — where the eggs wait until spring to hatch — no longer need one, resulting in marked increase in survival rates of immature mosquitos with the potential to spread diseases.

The Aedes albopictus, a mosquito that carries dengue fever, already has a base camp in the Mediterranean. Dr Erica McAlistair, senior curator of insects at the Natural History Museum, has studied this first hand in her field work and tells me, “[The aedes mosquito] is spreading quite nicely through France, and it’s marauding all over the rest of Europe.” Symptoms of dengue vary from severe fevers and rashes, to muscle pain and vomiting. Yaniv, who caught dengue in India was sick for two weeks and lost 7kg, remembers, “I had hallucinations, and also I was feeling that each time I moved my muscles it felt like I was being eaten from inside — horrible pain.”

To try and quantify the spread of arboviruses in Europe, Jing Helmson, doctoral graduate from the Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine at Umeå University, has…