Climate Change disease?

Jan 07, 2009 Editorial

Over the past year, Dr Leslie Ramsammy and his Ministry of Health officials have been conducting a vigorous public awareness campaign on the dangers posed by an ominous increase in the incidence of dengue in our country.
Containers in our yards, we are warned, provide a most hospitable environment for the Aedes Aegypti mosquito (larvae), which is the vector that spreads the deadly disease.
The present rainy season has only served to intensify the dangers. In conjunction with PAHO, the Ministry has also instituted a commendable programme that is focused on vector control, spearheaded by a Special Surveillance Officer and a team of specialists whose assignment it is to coordinate dengue interventions in Guyana.
The first occurrence of dengue almost simultaneously in Asia, Africa and North America dates back to the 1780s. The disease was identified and named in 1779.
No vaccine for curing dengue has so far been discovered. The only preventive measure is to avoid mosquito bites by taking personal precautions and eliminating the sources of stagnant water, such as open containers, flower pots, etc, because the Aedes Aegypti mosquito thrives on fresh water. There is no specific therapy for dengue; hence, attention is focused on relieving the symptoms of pain and dehydration.
Suspected as well as diagnosed cases should be segregated during their first three days of illness to avoid transmission of the disease to more people.
From the beginning of the millennium, there has been a sudden upsurge in the spread of the disease. Guyana has reported a record number of dengue cases in 2008 but was not alone: almost every country in the Caribbean and the tropical Americas was in the same boat.
The rest of the tropical world has also followed the trend, which has been gradually percolating into subtropical regions. While vector control is vital to control the disease, there is a growing body of experts who believe that the remarkable spread of dengue over the last decade is directly connected to the climate changes precipitated by global warming. This would put a whole new perspective on the dengue menace.
Last month, there was a conference on ‘Climate Change and the Caribbean: a clear and present danger’ that was held at the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES), St. Augustine.
Dr. John Agard, Professor of Marine and Environmental Studies at the St. Augustine Campus, in referencing the book, ‘Climate Change Impact on Dengue: The Caribbean Experience,’ noted, “the mosquito life cycle now is going faster because of the slightly increased temperature…” and that mosquito infestations tend to persist after the traditional rainy season due to sporadic rainfall during the dry season, dengue epidemics are occurring with increased frequency.
Over in Australia, Dr Mukesh Haikerwal, the president of that country’s Medical Association, deems climate change as “the biggest environmental and health challenge of our time.”
The threat is not limited to dengue but a variety of infectious diseases transmitted by an intermediate host or vector, such as malaria. The projected increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, inducing a 4.0 degree Celsius rise in average global temperature by the end of the century, shall lead to more conducive environment for growth and transmission of such diseases.
The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released in 2007, also confirms these projections.
The IPCC warns that between 1.5 billion and 3.5 billion people could face the risk of being afflicted by dengue by 2080, because of global warming.
Dr Hon Lo Wing Lok, an expert in infectious diseases, warns that the threat of dengue is increasing because of global warming; mosquitoes are becoming more active year by year, and their geographical reach is expanding both north and south of the Equator.
As we pointed out, our Ministry of Health has been doing its part in warning us of the imminent and immanent dangers that dengue poses to our health. But from our observations it does not appear that the citizenry have been as responsive as they could be.
If what the experts are projecting is accurate, we can only expect an increase in the spread of the disease unless as the Minister warns, we all play our part.