Climate Change Has Possible Benefits For Malaria In Africa?

 

Photo: Our World

Is there any good that can result from the spread of Climate Change across the globe?  I am sure that people are walking the Earth that could find a few suggestions.  But seriously, are there?

In a recent post on Politico, turns out that the effects of Climate Change have been beneficial in the fight against the spread of malaria:

Climate change could reduce the number of Africans at risk of malaria, according to a new study that examined how water supplies could affect the breeding grounds of the mosquitoes that carry the disease.

That might sound like good news since Africa accounts for the vast majority of the world’s malaria cases and deaths — but it might foreshadow other threats, one of the study authors told Carmen.

How’s that? In the study published in Science, researchers in the U.K. and Namibia created models to predict how climate change will affect where malaria is transmitted in Africa. The models considered surface water and rainfall coupled with low or high levels of the greenhouse gas emissions that warm the Earth.

Unlike previous studies that considered mostly rainfall, the new research predicts that some areas of Africa — starting in the west and moving east to South Sudan — will become too hot and dry for malaria-carrying mosquitoes to breed. Malaria causes flu-like symptoms and kills more than half a million people a year worldwide.

But Mark Smith, associate professor in water research at the University of Leeds in the U.K. and part of the team leading the study, told Carmen that a dwindling water supply would have worse effects than a good supply would.

While a dwindling water supply would be helpful to reduce malaria, it won’t decrease dengue, another mosquito-borne disease. In fact, it would increase it, since dengue is caused by a virus that can withstand higher temperatures.

The models also predicted potential changes in the malaria season across different parts of the continent: a decrease in Botswana, for instance, while some parts of South Africa would see an increase.

 This is not the 'great news' regarding climate change that we would like to read about.  There have to be workable and sustainable solutions that do not wipe out people or precious resources.