By Ryan Marx
In Africa in the Time
of Cholera Myron Echenberg suggests that Cholera and other infectious
diseases, have overestimated the capacities to master the natural world. Some invoke climate change as one area where
cholera and especially malaria may pose a greater threat in the future. One radical pessimists James Lovelock,
worries that low-lying coastal areas of Africa and other continents will be
underwater in three decades.
Without
going too much in detail about these diseases, the fact that cholera is able to
live outside the body and go dormant in colder environments causes concern for
people not only living in third world countries, but also for the more
industrialized countries.
Echenberg
goes on to state that the majority of scientific evidence points to serious
disruptions to the earth's ecological, climatic, and other natural systems
through a variety of changes such as the concentration of ozone levels in the
stratosphere, the retreat of glaciers, and the depletion of freshwater
supplies. He lists some changes already
taking place that include:
- spread of tick-borne encephalitis
- increased malaria at higher altitudes in Africa
- rise in dengue fever in several parts of the world
One
research study, using remote sensing, suggests that cholera is profiting from
climate change. Sea surface temperature
shows an annual cycle similar to the cholera case data. Also, sea surface height could indicate the
incursion of plankton-laden water inland (in tidal rivers, for example) and
correlates with cholera outbreaks (data gathered from B. Lobtitz "Climate
and infectious disease: Remote sensing for detection of Vibrio cholerae by indirect measurement").
Though this information and these studies are speculative,
the threats that cholera and malaria already pose on many parts of the world should
cause further concern to the possibility of climate change worsening these
conditions.
Myron Echenberg, Africa in the Time
of Cholera: A History of Pandemics From 1817 to the Present (2011)
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