Microbiology M Fisk

23 April 2007

1. Climate change

a. rising CO₂ concentrations and greenhouse effect

b. changes in seasonality, general warming of air and water

c. altered precipitation patterns, increases in extreme climate events such as

flooding and drought

2. Impacts of climate change on disease

a. host/vector/pathogen distributions can change with warming

b. distributions can expand with milder winters

c. floods, drought both influence populations of some pathogens

3. Malaria in a changing climate

a. overview of life cycle

b. warmer temperatures reduce development time from gametocytes to sporozoites

in mosquito; increase chances of transmission before mosquito dies

c. expansion northward and into higher elevation regions with warming

d. flooding can increase mosquito populations and malaria transmission

e. drought (and many other things) can influence human migrations and

cause introduction of malaria to previously unexposed populations

4. West Nile Virus

a. symptoms range from nothing to severe neurological problems

b. animal hosts, mosquito reservoir

c. outbreaks around the world seem related to warm winters followed by drought

d. concentration of drainage waters during drought thought to increase

bird/mosquito interaction

5. Lyme disease

a. live cycle involves host animals (deer and mice) and vectors (ticks)

b. multiple factors influence the distribution and abundance of these organisms

c. climate is one important factor regulating tick distribution

d. warmer winters, overall temperature, expected to allow northward spread