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This was one of the postulations of an increase in global temperature...
More importantly.. Jamaica eradicated Maleria before Italy.... That I should have remembered.. We Jamaicans produced some great people in the post slavery to independence period...
Tropical diseases back as Europe warms up
Maurice Chittenden
SCIENTISTS have uncovered the first evidence that diseases such as malaria, long thought beaten in Europe, are making a comeback because of climate change.
Holidaymakers could be at risk this summer because the disease has already re-emerged in Italy, where Mussolini once drained marshes to try to eradicate it.
Italy was declared malaria free in 1970 but cases of malaria are now being registered every year in the country’s southern regions.
“We are at the southern edge of the globe’s temperate area and that’s why Italy is being hit most by the shattering of climatic equilibriums. As a result we are importing illness from Africa,” said Francesco Ferrante, director-general of Legambiente, an Italian environmental association which has produced a new report on the hazards of climate change.
Other illnesses taking advantage of the warmer weather include tick-borne encephalitis. Up to 1993 only 18 cases of the illness — an acute virus-induced inflammation of the brain — had been reported in Italy since modern records began, but there have been almost 100 since, mostly around Venice.
Visceral leishmaniasis, a potentially fatal tropical disease caused by parasites and transmitted by sandfly bites, is also making a comeback.
Since 2000 more than 150 cases have been recorded in Italy each year, compared with about 50 up to 1990. The southern region of Campania, around Naples, is the worst hit.
Farm animals are not exempt from the effects of climate change, with fatal illnesses such as bluetongue disease travelling from Africa to southern Italy.
Climate change is also having its effect on wildlife. According to the Italian report, 20% of Mediterranean fish are now tropical species that have emigrated from the Red Sea.
A study on climate change by the European commission, to be released this week, says that Britain’s North Sea coast could replace the French Riviera and warns that increased temperatures could cause the deaths of 120,000 people a year in Europe by the end of this century.
So far, most of the new arrivals in Britain have been more colourful than dangerous. The number of butterfly and moth species migrating to Britain for the summer has increased fourfold in the past 25 years, according to research by the UK’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.
However, Tim Sparks, who led the study, said that future arrivals could include malaria-carrying mosquitoes and the Colorado beetle, which can destroy potato crops. “The possible consequences require immediate attention,” he said
More importantly.. Jamaica eradicated Maleria before Italy.... That I should have remembered.. We Jamaicans produced some great people in the post slavery to independence period...
Tropical diseases back as Europe warms up
Maurice Chittenden
SCIENTISTS have uncovered the first evidence that diseases such as malaria, long thought beaten in Europe, are making a comeback because of climate change.
Holidaymakers could be at risk this summer because the disease has already re-emerged in Italy, where Mussolini once drained marshes to try to eradicate it.
Italy was declared malaria free in 1970 but cases of malaria are now being registered every year in the country’s southern regions.
“We are at the southern edge of the globe’s temperate area and that’s why Italy is being hit most by the shattering of climatic equilibriums. As a result we are importing illness from Africa,” said Francesco Ferrante, director-general of Legambiente, an Italian environmental association which has produced a new report on the hazards of climate change.
Other illnesses taking advantage of the warmer weather include tick-borne encephalitis. Up to 1993 only 18 cases of the illness — an acute virus-induced inflammation of the brain — had been reported in Italy since modern records began, but there have been almost 100 since, mostly around Venice.
Visceral leishmaniasis, a potentially fatal tropical disease caused by parasites and transmitted by sandfly bites, is also making a comeback.
Since 2000 more than 150 cases have been recorded in Italy each year, compared with about 50 up to 1990. The southern region of Campania, around Naples, is the worst hit.
Farm animals are not exempt from the effects of climate change, with fatal illnesses such as bluetongue disease travelling from Africa to southern Italy.
Climate change is also having its effect on wildlife. According to the Italian report, 20% of Mediterranean fish are now tropical species that have emigrated from the Red Sea.
A study on climate change by the European commission, to be released this week, says that Britain’s North Sea coast could replace the French Riviera and warns that increased temperatures could cause the deaths of 120,000 people a year in Europe by the end of this century.
So far, most of the new arrivals in Britain have been more colourful than dangerous. The number of butterfly and moth species migrating to Britain for the summer has increased fourfold in the past 25 years, according to research by the UK’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.
However, Tim Sparks, who led the study, said that future arrivals could include malaria-carrying mosquitoes and the Colorado beetle, which can destroy potato crops. “The possible consequences require immediate attention,” he said