Vector-Borne Diseases in a Changing Climate and World

Abstract

One of the most important global effects of climate change is likely to be on infectious diseases, especially those transmitted by insect vectors (e.g., mosquitos, ticks) that strongly depend on a specific climate for survival, population dynamics, and pathogen transmission. Given the current prevalence and contribution of vector-borne diseases to the global disease burden, the implications of climate variability and change on their transmission are extremely important. However, the potential impact on vector-borne disease risk is difficult to assess and remains highly uncertain, particularly in the long term. Moreover, there are several non-climatic factors in our changing world that drive vector-borne disease transmission, such as urbanization, land use changes, and human mobility, and affect population exposure to these diseases. Ideally, future models of vector-borne diseases would add projections of non-climatic factors and how these might be influenced or changed. Ultimately, the risk of vector-borne disease in a population is determined by that population’s vulnerability, which is a measure of the capacity available to adapt and respond to changes in the environmental suitability for mosquito vectors, pathogen replication, and disease transmission. In this chapter, we seek to review the current status and challenges in understanding vector-borne disease dynamics given the complex interplay of climatic and non-climatic factors in a warming climate. We focus on mosquito-borne diseases and highlight current knowledge base and knowledge gaps around this topic to stimulate future research in this field.