Global climate change and the emergence/re-emergence of infectious diseases

Abstract

Variation in the incidence of vector-borne diseases is associated with extreme weather events and annual changes in weather conditions. Moreover, it is assumed that global warming might lead to an increase of infectious disease outbreaks. While a number of reports link disease outbreaks to single weather events, the El Niño/Southern Oscillation and other large-scale climate fluctuations, no report unequivocally associates vector-borne diseases with increased temperature and the environmental changes expected to accompany it. The complexity of not yet fully understood pathogen transmission dynamics with numerous variables might be an explanation of the problems in assessing the risk factors.