Climate change is an invisible killer. A family that lived in a hill station in India, an area known for its colder climate, took their sick child to the hospital. Nobody thought of dengue until a diagnosis confirmed it. Warmer temperatures in India and elsewhere make conditions more favourable for mosquitoes.
"Nobody is immune [to climate change] whether you are poor or rich," said Dr Naveen Rao, senior vice-president of the Health Initiative at The Rockefeller Foundation, of his cousin's child in an interview at the regional office in Bangkok. "Climate change affects everybody."
In India, dengue simmered and then broke out in 1996. It has increased dramatically over the past decade. A study published in Nature last year found that climate change has worsened infectious diseases. Rising temperatures are making environments more suitable for vectors, including mosquitoes which can spread dengue and malaria.
