Modeling the Potential Impact of Climate Change on Vector-borne Diseases and Respiratory Viruses

Global climate changes are expected to shift climatic zones up north, as well as to change rain patterns over extensive areas. These two factors might produce favorable conditions for accelerated incubation and growth of mosquitoes, and the subsequent transmission of different types of diseases. In a similar way, some strains of respiratory viruses can find conditions favorable to spread out more than once during a year. Based on a seasonally forced SEIR model for the population of both humans and mosquitoes, the conditions for epidemics outbreaks are studied as a function of the relative increase of the average temperature and humidity. The model is solved for the homogeneous case as well as in the case of a network mimicking the social network within cities. Different network topologies are explored in order to evaluate potential pathways for fast spreading of diseases. By following a similar SEIR scheme, the dynamics of respiratory viruses is analyzed and its impact on asthmatic people. In this case, the model is solved in conjunction with air quality conditions in order to estimate the join effect of poor air quality and the prevalence of respiratory viruses exacerbating asthma cases at Emergency Rooms (ER). The results of both models are compared with available historical health data sets.