The Impacts of Climate Change on Malaria Risk in Mozambique

Minnesota Demography and Aging Seminar Series
Captions are auto-generated and may contain errors
Kelly Searle - Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, University of Minnesota School of Public Health
Climate change has long been hypothesized to impact the distributions and risk for infectious diseases, particularly vector-borne diseases. P. falciparum malaria transmission is uniquely susceptible to fluctuations in temperature as both the vectors and parasite life cycle are temperature dependent. These relationships are difficult to quantify in epidemiologic studies. One immediate impact of climate change is already occurring, and impacting malaria risk, is through increasing severe weather events. Mozambique has been experiencing increased frequency and severity of tropical cyclones and storms over the past 2 decades. These severe storms result in infrastructure and household damage, which has become cumulative with increasing frequency of the storms. With limited and delayed repairs and large-scale impacts the impacted populations experience higher risk for malaria infection due to increased exposure to vectors. Additionally, there is increased risk for severe outcomes with infrastructure damage that delays or limits access to healthcare and other resources.