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India: Climate change takes malaria to the hills

29.01.2012

Due to climate change, malaria and other diseases may shift to higher altitudes, says a draft Action Plan for Climate Change recently compiled in India. Warming climate and variable precipitation offer newer sites of breeding to vectors, pathogens, and bacteria. Plasmodium vivax (Pv) and Plasmodium falciparum (Pf) are the main pathogens responsible for malaria and the positivity rate of the latter has been found to be more than 25 percent over the past three years. Meanwhile, dengue is spreading silently with a sharp rise in the number of cases possibly owing to global warming. The report presents the results of research conducted by the State Public Health Engineering Department, School of Oceanographic Studies in Jadavpur University, National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Disease, School of Tropical Medicine, Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, research division of SSKM Hospital and National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research.