Tropical diseases are imminent in Europe because of warming
Dangerous diseases from the tropics can threaten Europeans because of global warming. It is because higher temperatures lead to the spreading of Tiger mosquito, which, for example, spreads dengue fever or chikungunya disease to the more northern European areas. The scientists in magazine Interface of the Royal Society have warned against it.
Tiger mosquito originates from Asia but in the last decades it has widely spread to other warm, but not tropical areas in the world. It is also responsible for the transfer of yellow fever or west Nile virus
It first got to Europe at the end of the 70s of the last century and it was because of the goods import from the countries of its occurence, these days it has already taken roots in 17 European countries.
Dengue fever or chikungunya disease were reported in France in 2010. In the same year dengue fever was brought home by a German tourist who had been on holiday in Croatia before.
According to the researches of Liverpool University, who have collected data concerning the climate development in Europe since 1950, the climate conditions are more and more favourable for Tiger mosquitoes occurence in the old continent. Increasing average temperatures and at the same time bigger humidity and growing amount of precipitation are to blame for it.
While from the 60s to the 80s southern parts of France, Italy, northern Spain, the east coast of the Adriatic sea and also western Turkey began to be favourable for mosquitoes, than in the last two decades the journey for this insect starts opening to Balkan and north-west Europe, it means the countries of Benelux and the western part of Germany.
“Scientist researches show that due to the climate changes more and more Europeans will need a vaccination against exotic diseases not only when travelling to the remote tropics but also when they want to go out on the balcony of their own flat. It is an example of the fact how dramatically our lives can be changed unless we start intensively reduce the production of greenhouse gases causing global warming,“ stated Dalibor Dostál, the director of the European Wildlife conservation organisation.
Photo credit: Licence: Public domain | James Gathany / CDC / Wikimedia Commons
