Is Your State Prepared For The Health Impacts Of Climate Change?
- Abstract
This winter, a strange sickness has been spreading through the Caribbean. In St. Martin alone, where the disease was first detected in December, there have been over 500 confirmed cases and another 3,200 people are believed to have contracted the disease elsewhere in the Caribbean. The disease, Chikungunya fever, was once only seen in East Africa and while there were always a few cases of people with the fever reported in the Western hemisphere each year, they were all cases acquired abroad. But now it seems that the mosquito which spreads the disease is here to stay, and health officials in the U.S. are waiting to see when the first locally acquired case of the fever will spring up.As climate change drives up temperatures and moisture levels, “there is plenty of habitat in the U.S. that is now suitable for the mosquito,” explained George Luber, an epidemiologist and the Associate Director of Climate Change at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
- Resource Type
- Blog Post
- Author
- Climate Progress
- Date
- March 4, 2014
- Organization Type
- Ngo
- Health and Human Impact
- Overview/general
- Climate and Environmental Impact
- Overview/general
- Solutions
- Climate mitigation/GHG reduction Disaster preparedness
- Other
- Vulnerable populations