The 10th Symposium on Global Change Studies

2C.2
FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE THE TRANSMISSION DYNAMICS OF DENGUE AND OTHER MOSQUITO-TRANSMITTED DISEASES

Duane J. Gubler, US Department of Health Human Services, Fort Collins, CO

Abstract

There has been a dramatic global resurgence of dengue and other vector-borne diseases in the past 20 years. While the factors responsible for this resurgence are not well understood, demographic and societal changes have been instrumental. Climate change is frequently listed as a cause for the resurgence of diseases such as malaria, dengue and yellow fever, but there are a paucity of data to support this conclusion. Most vector-borne human diseases exist in complex transmission cycles involving three hosts. The maintenance of these cycles is dependent on many extrinsic factors such as ambient temperature, rainfall, humidity, wind, etc., but also on other factors related to the three populations involved, including behavior patterns of the mosquito vector, the vertebrate and human hosts, and the strain of pathogen present. The complex interaction of all these factors determine whether there will be silent endemic/enzootic transmission or epidemic/epizootic transmissions. These factors will be discussed in detail, and climate change as a factor in the emergence of epidemic vector-borne disease, will be put into proper perspective, using dengue as a model

The 10th Symposium on Global Change Studies