A blog post from Oh, For The Love Of Science! talks about the West Nile virus. This is a very dangerous disease that was first seen in the United States in 1999, which is said to have been the hottest and driest year in history. A slight increase in temperature, as little as 2 degrees, can greatly increase the spread of this disease. Higher temperatures can magnify the infections of this disease, there is a shorter time period from when the infection occurs and symptoms appear. Higher temperatures also increase the survival rate of the virus. So the prediction from this article is that "as our climate changes, more mosquitoes will be able to infect more people, more quickly and in more places."
I'm as afraid of global warming as the next guy, but wouldn't the spread of tropic diseases just lead to better treatment for them? One of the reasons that tropical diseases are so deadly is that no really rich nation (Europe, America, Japan) is tropical. So it seems that the disease effects may be temporary (or will they?).
ReplyDeleteI would rather not have to go through an epidemic in order to find a cure for something.
ReplyDeleteBut it's been done in the past. Any time the world is affected by a virus, there has been an enormous outflow of aid in the forms of research analysts, medical care, and political involvement. Like TicTacJoe stated at the end, even if there was a spread of the virus to Europe and America it could be beneficial in some aspects and it might not.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with this post that warming temperatures will greatly influence a disease. I believe that global warming will let diseases found only in warmer climates spread north, and even possibly bring back once disease thought to have been cured. I believe that global warming is a real thing that has to be dealt with head on.
ReplyDeleteIf a new disease does spread, then eventually a cure will probably be made. But in the meantime it could be very dangerous to the population.
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