CNN Hypes False Claims About Dengue, Brings Climate Concerns Before Truth, Again – Are You Worried About It?
CNN ran a story claiming that climate change is causing the mosquito-borne dengue fever epidemic to spread. This is wrong. As the CNN story notes, the dengue-carrying mosquito is already endemic to the countries it discusses, causing thousands of illnesses and hundreds of deaths each year. The data do not support the claim that modest warming makes it easier for mosquitoes to breed, and thus increase their numbers, or spread diseases such as dengue.
Heather Chan, author of a CNN story, titled “The Dengue Emergency in Singapore is a harbinger of climate change for the world,” incorporate unsubstantiated facts and speculations freely throughout the report.
Singapore says it is facing a dengue “emergency” as it grapples with an outbreak of a seasonal disease that arrived unusually earlier this year.
…
Experts are warning [the early high incidences of infection are] a grim number not only for Singapore – whose tropical climate is a natural breeding ground for the virus-carrying Aedes mosquito – but also for the rest of the world. That’s because changes in the global climate mean such outbreaks are likely to become more common and widespread in the coming years.
To be clear, dengue fever is not a new disease. As described in a 2018 article in the journal Parasites and Vectors:
The earliest record of dengue fever comes from a Chinese medical encyclopedia dating to 992 BC. Furthermore, before the end of the 18th century, continuous outbreaks of a specific disease with characteristics similar to dengue occurred in Asia and the Americas; therefore, it is hypothesized that between the 19th and 20th centuries, the virus probably spread throughout the tropics and subtropics.
So dengue is not new, rare, or undetected in countries where it hasn’t been recorded for hundreds of years, nor is the mosquito that carries it, Aedes Aegypti.
The number of dengue infections, in Singapore and the other 100 countries where Aedes Aegupti is endemic and thriving, is increasing every year. In Singapore, for example, CNN reports, in 2021 there are 5,258 reported cases, while in 2020, the country has 35,315 cases.
There is no evidence that the modest temperature increases experienced by Singapore or other countries in recent decades have made mosquitoes more prolific or more likely to become hosts for fever. dengue and other vector-borne diseases that mosquitoes have carried throughout earth’s history, such as malaria, West Nile, and Zika.
Nor, contrary to claims made in the CNN report, there is evidence that weather has become more extreme in tropical countries due to climate change, resulting in more disease-carrying mosquitoes. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Recent 6order Appraise, evaluate, evaluate The report finds limited evidence for an increase in extreme weather events and even less evidence linking changes in weather trends to human activities.
As has been discussed many times at Climate Realism, here, hereand hereexample, and as detailed in Chapter 4 on Climate Change Revisited II: Fossil FuelsA series of scientific papers refute CNN’s claims that climate change has the potential to exacerbate the spread of mosquito-borne diseases, like dengue.
Indeed, studies from Africa, to England and Wales, to North and South America, to Thailand and beyond have disproved any link between climate change and the spread of fever. malaria, dengue fever, West Nile virus and other vector-borne diseases. For example, a 2010 study in a peer-reviewed journal Nature report, “[The study’s authors] compare historical and contemporary maps of the extent and incidence of malaria and find that endemic/stable malaria likely covered 58% of the world’s land surface circa 1900 but only 30% by 2007” In short, despite warming, vector-borne diseases such as dengue and malaria have become less common and deadly as the climate warms.
The same paper counters potential claims that there will be further reductions in vector-borne diseases but for global warming. The authors wrote, “it is widely stated that rising mean temperatures have resulted in increases in malaria morbidity and mortality worldwide largely in contrast to the observed global downward trend. at both prevalence and geographic extent.”
World health authorities should fight dengue. Evidence suggests that trying to avert climate change as a way to reduce dengue incidence is a waste of time and resources. Temperature changes of a few degrees do not make mosquitoes faster or more sick. The same goes for malaria; Killing mosquitoes, eliminating their breeding grounds, disrupting their reproductive cycles, and developing drugs that prevent dengue infection or reduce the harm caused by dengue fever are good hopes. to reduce or eliminate this all too often deadly disease.
H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D. is managing editor of Environment & Climate News and a research fellow in environmental and energy policy at the Heartland Institute. Burnett has worked at the National Center for Policy Analysis for 18 years, most recently as a senior fellow in charge of the NCPA’s environmental policy program. He has held various positions in public and professional policy organizations, including serving as a member of the Environmental and Natural Resources Task Force on the Texas e-Texas committee. Comptroller.
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