Climate Change and Malaria in Western Kenya

Dr Andrew Githeko, of the Kenya Medical Research Institute, talks about his work transferring an epidemic prediction model to western Kenya in relation to the influence of climate change and the spread of malaria.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Climate change
• Africa
• Kenya
• malaria
• CCAA

[gadionson1]

nice video...

[thefudge123321]

Waiting for a response to my questions, and proof that environmentalism by making it it difficult for developing countries to use DDT (just spraying a small amount twice a year on inside walls of homes has a dramatic effect) is not causing millions of peoples deaths right now. This is the real reason.

[fudge987654321]

The dramatic increases in the 1990's however do go hand in hand with the reduction and then then finally the 'banning' of DDT at the beginning of the 1990's.

[fudge987654321]

Dramatic increases in malaria in the 1990s are not mirrored by prospectively collected climate data. And malaria researchers have also noted that the disease was endemic in many of other regions of the world, including the American South, until DDT eradicated malaria in those places after World War II

[fudge987654321]

The U.S. CDC reported similar findings in 2005. The CDC study concluded: Doubts exist as to the plausibility of climate change as proximate cause of epidemic malaria because global warming cannot explain the World War II epidemics.

[fudge987654321]

The WHO report also casts a skeptical eye on climate playing any significant role in Kenya malaria resurgence. Measuring temperature and rainfall in Kenyas Kericho district in the highlands, the study states that there is no obvious effect of warming in this area since 1967.

[fudge987654321]

The only thing that has changed is temperature? Why does the effect of not using DDT always get left out? Because that is something that has changed....Funny that people started getting it again in these highland areas in the 90's, thats around the time DDT was 'banned'.

Any areas these mosquitos can live at, (and they only need 15c during the breeding season) are at continuous risk of malaria breakout

[fudge987654321]

Paul Reiter is a professor of medical entomology at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France. He is a member of the World Health Organization Expert Advisory Committee on Vector Biology and Control. He was an employee of the Center for Disease Control (Dengue Branch) for 22 years. He is a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society. He is a specialist in the natural history, epidemiology and control of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever, West Nile Virus, and malaria

[fudge987654321]

Since there has been no increase in mean global surface temperatures for the past ten years, the area of the planet where the temperature reaches 15 degrees C during the breeding season has not increased: so there is no possible scientific basis for saying that the current high malaria mortality owes anything to global warming.

[fudge987654321]

The malaria mosquito, according to Professor Paul Reiter, the worlds foremost expert, is capable of surviving in temperatures as low as 25 degrees Celsius (13 Fahrenheit). Its only dependence upon temperature is that, during the breeding season, it requires an ambient temperature of at least 15 degrees C (59 F).