Malarial Mosquitos' Territory Expands As Climate Warms
The mosquitos carrying malaria, one of the world's most devastating diseases, are flying farther from the equator, and to higher elevations, as climate change increases temperatures around the world, a new study in Biology Letters finds. Using data from as far back as 1898, Georgetown University researchers found the mosquitos that carry malaria, generally considered a tropical disease, have ranged 2.9 miles farther from the equator and more than 21 feet higher in elevation every year since then. Malaria has also killed hundreds of people in Pakistan since widespread flooding submerged a third of the country last summer. Climate change is already exacerbating the impacts of infectious diseases more broadly. “If this were random, and if it were unrelated to climate, it wouldn’t look as cleanly climate-linked,” lead author of the study Colin Carlson told the New York Times.
(New York Times $, Washington Post $)
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