Rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns and extreme weather events create ideal conditions for pathogens and their vectors – such as mosquitoes, midges and ticks – to thrive.
This is confirmed by a recent report for the global climate change conference, COP30. The report was produced by a team of global south scientists from the Climate Amplified Diseases and Epidemics consortium, which studies and figures out ways of responding to infectious diseases that climate change is making worse. It sets out how deadly diseases like West Nile virus, dengue and chikungunya are now spreading to new regions in Africa and Europe because of the changing climate.
Some of the authors of the report, Tulio de Oliveira, Cheryl Baxter and PhD candidate Maambele Khosa, explain what needs to be done to keep people at risk of infection safe and prevent infectious disease from multiplying.
