Malaria is an infectious disease caused by the parasite Plasmodium which mainly affects a person’s lungs. Malaria is transmitted by the bite of a parasite, a female anopheline mosquito, and is called a “malaria vector”. Transmission of the disease depends on the climate conditions, which may increase or decrease the overall population of mosquitoes. Since the parasite grows more rapidly in warmer conditions, many countries with warmer climates have a higher risk of malaria. The focus of this article will be on how climate change affects many people’s lives and causes infectious diseases like malaria. The current mortality rate of malaria globally ranges from 0.3-2.2%, but in the tropical areas, this range rises to 11-30%. Children under the age of five are considered the most vulnerable group that get affected by malaria. Individuals can be at risk due to behavioural or environmental factors.
Behavioural risk factors
Some of the behavioural risk factors include not having access to insecticide-treated bed nets, poor housing, water supplies, and agricultural land. Many socioeconomic factors affect the lifestyle of individuals and increase the chances of developing malaria. For example, a household that does not have insecticide-treated bed nets, and uses dung cakes as their cooking fuel is at high risk of developing malaria. Similarly, in many rural areas of India, many families do not have access to bathrooms and live in slums, which affects their health poorly.
Environmental risks
Some of the environmental factors include polluted water, bushes, heavy rainfall, high warmer temperatures, and low altitude. Agricultural labourers are also at risk of developing malaria vectors because of their frequent and inadequate movement in stored water. This infectious disease changes the behaviour of houses because of its cost, and other factors that have a long-term effect on economic growth. Families that are unable to afford the vaccines, therapies, and antimalarial drugs for the treatment of disease because of its high cost have a higher possibility of losing their life.
Why is Malaria being neglected in many countries?
Many low-income countries experience consequences as they face difficulty in providing treatments for malaria because of insufficient health-related facilities. Therefore, diseases like malaria can be recognised as critical or can be neglected based on the society that a person lives in. In the countries where malaria is endemic, change in climate conditions can increase or decrease the growth of the mosquito.
What’s the link between Malaria & global warming?
Climate change is negatively affecting human’s health. Due to warmer temperatures like 25 or 30 degree Celsius, an increase in water-borne diseases like malaria will occur and spread rapidly in countries such as Africa, and Asia. Global warming includes warmer temperatures, humidity, and heavy rainfall are all factors that increase the risk of developing malaria because mosquitoes breed well in this environment. As the temperature rises, the life cycle of mosquitoes shortens, and therefore, they bite more to maintain their positive energy balance, leading to an increase in malaria cases. Therefore, people in many low-income countries still do not have access to recommended interventions for malaria’s prevention. Hence, to stop the spread of the disease, further actions should be taken by the practitioners so the incidences of malaria can decrease.
Many people in different countries get affected by Malaria. Each year 2000 people die in the United States because of Malaria. One of the reasons for the spread includes travelling of immigrants from African or Asian countries to the United States. Children are considered as the vulnerable group of developing malaria because of their weakened immune system. Their body at the early stage does not develop specific immunity that can fight against the infection. In the last 10 years, many cases of malaria have been reduced to 50% as a result of effective malaria preventive treatment. Malaria is known as a warm-weather disease since the mosquito needs warmth to grow properly. After the maturation of mosquitoes, it rapidly starts its transmission by biting humans. Malaria is regarded as a risk for people who live in tropical areas near dams and oceans. One of the unknown significant factors is drought that has affected many lives in Africa, and to cope with this challenge, many small dams have been constructed in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Access to adequate water alleviated many issues, but it also increased the spread of malaria in the country. It has been concluded that a house located 900 meters away from a dam in Africa has a probability of 17% contracting malaria, whereas a house located within 160 meters has a 74% chance of getting malaria. This result indicates that the reservoir of anopheline is water and living near to lakes, dams can poorly affect the health of humans.
As we are aware, climate change is an essential environmental issue, and rising temperature can have many consequences, including the spread of infectious diseases. Many countries face issues like drought, heavy rainfall, increased smoke, pollution, flooding and these all problems raise the temperature, resulting in a high burden of malaria. In many developing countries like India, poverty is linked to malaria. In 2014, India accounted for 58% of the total cases of malaria because of lack of resources for people. More than 800 million people are living in poverty in India, which limits their access to treatment for malaria. People do not have proper houses or access to safe drinking or nutritious food. Poor working conditions have a negative impact on their health. People living in slums cannot afford insecticide-treated bed nets and cannot do indoor spray as it is extremely expensive. Poor housing and stored water in containers help the mosquito to grow rapidly and infect. Therefore, socioeconomic factors play an essential role in the development of malaria as developing countries face financial crises.
Interventions recommended by WHO are being implemented in various countries for malaria-elimination. Insecticide-treated bed nets, indoor sprays, vaccines and malarial drugs have been given to people for the prevention and treatment of malaria. Malaria eradication is still a work in progress, as many countries in Asia and Africa have a high risk of developing malaria due to the warm climate. Resources have been provided to people, but still inequities and shortfalls exist. Some individuals from low-income families are unable to afford the treatment, and several individuals refuse to use it despite knowing the consequences.
Therefore, spreading awareness regarding the infectious disease and its consequences is important so people can take precautions. This can be accomplished by organising various campaigns in places where the risk of contracting malaria is higher. Countries governments’ should employ effective strategies to ensure that the data they collect is accurate and contains both treated and untreated cases from their respective countries. In terms of climate conditions, policy makers should confirm that industries are located outside of the cities so that less smoke is released into the environment. Exclusion of industries from towns, reducing water waste, and building dams away from cities are some of the strategies that can help change the environment. Providing free insecticide-treated bed nets to those who cannot afford and proper dressing for children in summer are the other key factors that can help reduce malaria. Hence, successful government policies, good communication between practitioners as well as environmental ministers, and community-based action are all needed in countries where malaria is endemic, so the disease can be eradicated.
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