Lyme disease will increase with global warming
Lyme disease is transmitted by a tick bite, an animal whose life cycle depends on the weather conditions. A 2 ° C increase in temperatures is expected to increase the number of Lyme cases in the United States by 20% by the middle of this century.
Carnegie Mellon University and the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science investigated on the link between climate and frequency of Lyme disease in 15 US states. These accounted for more than 95% of the cases in the country. The authors used data from 2000 to 2016.
They found that rising temperatures by 2 ° C in the coming decades should increase by 20% the number of Lyme cases in the United States: this would represent 8.6 additional cases per 100,000 inhabitants, each year.
According to Edson Severnini, one of the authors of the article, “a dramatic increase in the incidence of Lyme disease in the United States as a result of climate change is imminent”.
