Axios – Almost daily headlines about the spread of rare, potentially deadly insect-borne diseases like eastern equine encephalitis and Oropouche fever highlight the expanding threat that mosquitoes, ticks, and other bugs present.
Longer, hotter, summers, milder winters, and changes in land use and travel are giving insects more time and space to spread diseases or compound the misery in places where they already exist.
Global warming is “changing where mosquitoes and ticks live, and thus what diseases are moving around in different regions,” CDC director Mandy Cohen said Wednesday.
The death of a New Hampshire resident from eastern equine encephalitis, or EEE, brought home the threat.
The CDC has also warned this summer about an increased risk of dengue fever, which is spread by the same type of mosquitoes that carry the Zika virus and chikungunya.
West Nile Virus — which was recently blamed for the hospitalization of former NIAID director Anthony Fauci — has become a perennial threat throughout much of the continental U.S.
Malaria, a parasite spread by another species of mosquito, is also on the rise around the world, and several cases were reported in the U.S. last year, though the risk of catching it here remains low.
In the U.S. in particular, experts say the environment for insects has become far more hospitable with temperatures rising further north.
“We’re seeing diseases that used to be “tropical.” Well, now parts of the U.S. can count,” Megan Ranney, dean of the Yale School of Public Health, told Axios.
“Ticks are not dying over the winter because it’s not getting cold enough, so it’s making Lyme disease spread. And then we’re seeing other tick-borne diseases, like Powassan virus, start to spread. It is a predictable but potentially deadly consequence of climate change” …
