Anyone truly worried about malaria in impoverished countries would do well to focus on improving human living conditions, not the weather, say Paul Reiter, director of the Insects and Infectious Diseases Unit of the Institute Pasteur, Paris, and Roger Bate, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
The globalisation of vectors and pathogens is a serious problem, but it is not new, say Reiter and Bate:
The concept of malaria as a “tropical” infection is nonsense, say Rieter and Bate, it is a disease of the poor. Meanwhile, malaria has been increasing at an alarming rate in parts of Africa and elsewhere in the world:
Of course, temperature is a factor in the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases, and future incidence may be affected if the world’s climate continues to warm. But throughout history the most critical factors in the spread or eradication of disease has been human behaviour and living standards. Poverty has been and remains the world’s greatest killer, say Reiter and Bate.
Source: Paul Reiter and Roger Bate, More Global Warming Nonsense,,/i> Wall Street Journal, April 10, 2008.
For text: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120778860618203531.html
For more on Global Warming Impacts and Responses: http://eteam.ncpa.org/issues/?c=impacts-and-responses
For more on Global Warming: http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_Category=32
FMF Policy Bulletin/ 16 April 2008
