Climate change is a contentious issue and it appears that yet another argument has broken out over the topic – this time, over whether the warming planet will in fact help to spread disease or not.

Proponents of the theory claim that the rise in global temperatures will help to spread more disease. An example of this is malaria. Warmer temperatures may help mosquitoes carrying the disease to spread to new areas.

Although there is general agreement over this theory, some ecologists claim that the overall amount of disease will not increase as the reality is far more complex. In fact, the warmer climate may actually inhibit some diseases. Thus although malarial mosquitoes may spread to new areas, the warming climate may create drier, hotter conditions where the have previously thrived, thus eliminating them from these areas meaning the number of infections around the globe will actually not increase.

In areas such as Europe and America, there are good sanitation levels and insect control programmes so even if there are an increase in the number of mosquitoes in these areas, the chances are that the infection rate would not be as severe.

It appears that the spread of disease hinges on many different factors and therefore predicting what will happen if and when global temperatures increase is a very difficult task indeed.

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