sharon sanders
Editor-in-Chief & President
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</td></tr><tr> <td> BEIJING, Sept. 19 (Xinhuanet) -- Climate change experts Tuesday warned at a medical conference that global warming will lead to an increase in infectious disease around the world, media reports said Wednesday.
In addition to an increase of diseases like malaria and dengue fever, global warming is likely to heighten the incidence of diarrhea, heat waves, drought, floods and malnutrition.
The experts believed that the earth's temperature is likely to rise by 1.8-4.0 degrees centigrade by the year 2100.
"Human-induced climate change ... is proceeding a little bit faster than we would have expected," said McMichael, an epidemiologist at the University of Canberra in Australia.
They believed diseases worsened by global warming already have contributed to the deaths of between 150,000 and five million people per year, citing West Nile virus as an example.
Native to Africa, West Nile, a virus spreading to humans from a bite of an infected mosquito, can be found today throughout Canada and the United States because the high temperatures prompt a more rapid spread of the disease than before.
"We know that climate change is going to change the pattern of infectious diseases," said Jim Sliwa, a spokesman for the American Society for Microbiology.
However, McMichael said there are some areas where infectious disease may be less virulent as a result of global warming.
"In West Africa, for example, the rate is likely to decline, as future conditions are getting too hot and too dry for the mosquito," he said.
(Agencies)
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-09/19/content_6753391.htm
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Global warming to increase infectious disease
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</td></tr><tr> <td> BEIJING, Sept. 19 (Xinhuanet) -- Climate change experts Tuesday warned at a medical conference that global warming will lead to an increase in infectious disease around the world, media reports said Wednesday.
In addition to an increase of diseases like malaria and dengue fever, global warming is likely to heighten the incidence of diarrhea, heat waves, drought, floods and malnutrition.
The experts believed that the earth's temperature is likely to rise by 1.8-4.0 degrees centigrade by the year 2100.
"Human-induced climate change ... is proceeding a little bit faster than we would have expected," said McMichael, an epidemiologist at the University of Canberra in Australia.
They believed diseases worsened by global warming already have contributed to the deaths of between 150,000 and five million people per year, citing West Nile virus as an example.
Native to Africa, West Nile, a virus spreading to humans from a bite of an infected mosquito, can be found today throughout Canada and the United States because the high temperatures prompt a more rapid spread of the disease than before.
"We know that climate change is going to change the pattern of infectious diseases," said Jim Sliwa, a spokesman for the American Society for Microbiology.
However, McMichael said there are some areas where infectious disease may be less virulent as a result of global warming.
"In West Africa, for example, the rate is likely to decline, as future conditions are getting too hot and too dry for the mosquito," he said.
(Agencies)
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-09/19/content_6753391.htm
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