Health and climate change
Adaptation is...predicting malaria's changing course
The changing climate: predicting changes in malaria patterns
Authors:
; Department for International Development
Publisher:
International Development Research Centre , 2008
East Africa is experiencing outbreaks of malaria in highland areas where there is little experience with the disease. Researchers led by the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) are combining climate observation with medical research to predict highland malaria outbreaks in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda so local officials can better prepare for them.
The publication discusses that until recently, the highlands was considered an oasis of good health: malarial mosquitoes couldn’t tolerate the highlands’ long-term average temperatures of 18 degrees Celsius or lower. However, with climate change highland temperatures rising in recent decades the incidences of malaria have increased over the baseline average across the three countries.
Health experts say controlling malaria is crucial if the three East African nations are to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goal of halving the incidence of infectious diseases by 2015.
In 2001 KEMRI developed a malaria epidemic prediction model that can detect an epidemic two to four months before it occurs. Now, the challenge is to develop and deploy an instrument that health system managers can use to reliably predict the onset of a malaria epidemic in areas not traditionally prone to the disease, and to manage it better.
The document concludes that in the likelihood that climate change is altering malaria patterns, a tool that better predicts its occurrence may have impacts far beyond East Africa’s highlands.
