Southeast Asia and South Pacific island nations face a growing threat from malaria and dengue fever as climate change spreads mosquitoes that carry the diseases and climate-change refugees start to migrate. A new report titled "The Sting of Climate Change", said recent data suggested that since the 1970s climate change had contributed to 150,000 more deaths every year from disease, with over half of the deaths in Asia.
"Projections of the impact of climate change on malaria and dengue are truly eye-opening," said the Lowy Institute report released in Sydney on Thursday. According to the World Health Organisation, rising temperatures and higher rainfall caused by climate change will see the number of mosquitoes increasing in cooler areas where there is little resistance or knowledge of the diseases they carry.
The Lowy report said early modeling predicted malaria prevalence could be 1.8 to 4.8 times greater in 2050 than 1990. The share of the world's population living in malaria-endemic zones could also grow from 45 percent to 60 percent by the end of the century.
By 2085, an estimated 52 percent of the world's population, or about 5.2 billion people, will be living in areas at risk of dengue.
It also said diseases will spread once climate change forces people to flee their homes, such as low-lying islands or coastal land swamped by rising sea levels.
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