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Climate change is not only affecting where people live and prosper but also where mosquitoes do. This is bad news for northern Australia and Australia's northern neighbours. In a new policy brief, Dr Sarah Potter, a malaria research scientist, analyses how climate change will likely affect the spread of malaria and dengue in maritime Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands and how Australia itself is at greater risk of outbreaks of these diseases.
The sting of climate change: Malaria and Dengue Fever in Maritime Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands
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Global climate change will intensify the already significant malaria and dengue problems in maritime Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. Those countries with the fewest resources and poor public health infrastructure are likely to feel the impact of increasing disease the most acutely. Australia itself is a ‘fringe country’ to the expanding endemic zone of mosquito-borne diseases to its north. Climate change may well make more of northern Australia more vulnerable to malaria and dengue outbreaks.
Australia should strengthen regional efforts in maritime Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands for the better quantification of the effects of climate change on the spread of mosquito-borne diseases between and within susceptible countries. Australia’s own risk assessments for malaria and dengue should be updated. AusAID’s increased budget allocations for climate change and public health should be leveraged to enhance impact-based research, public education and health care training programs in malaria and dengue-prone areas, especially previously unaffected ones. Within Australia, quarantine procedures need to be re-evaluated. The Northern Territory policy of screening and treatment of immigrants from malaria-infected areas should be extended to other states, particularly Queensland and Western Australia. Consideration should be given to a similar screening and isolation program for dengue
