Climate change has increased childhood malaria and could continue to do so in southern and East Africa where communities are less experienced at tackling the disease, while reducing the risk in today’s hotspots as temperatures become too high for mosquitoes, according to a new study published in Nature.
The study— The past and future impact of climate change on childhood malaria in Africa— quantifies climate change’s historical and future impact in sub-Saharan Africa’s children, where most cases and deaths occur. It finds that climate change has slightly increased malaria overall.
Looking ahead, rising temperatures could increase the malaria risk in southern and East Africa while reducing it where it is most rampant today, as it becomes so hot that even mosquitoes struggle to survive.
“Climate change isn’t just making malaria worse or better—it’s moving it,” said co-author Tamma Carleton, faculty head of Research for the Climate Impact Lab and an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in a statement. “Whether a place sees elevated malaria risks or reduced burdens under climate change depends on how hot it is today. We see relief in the current hotspots and new risk nearly everywhere else.”
The study finds that climate change has slightly suppressed the spread of the disease in the warm, malaria hotbeds of today, and will continue to as it gets too hot for the disease to flourish—posing other human health threats.