demics

Latin America

edited by Valeria Sinisi Garcia

Photo: Paraguayan federal health worker takes part in fumigation to prevent from plague, Paraguay, Jorge Adorno, Reuters, 2020.

Dengue and Covid-19: Climate Change is Setting an Irreversible Epidemiological Pattern

written by Mathilde Aupetit

Whilst facing the Covid-19 pandemic with all its repercussions, Latin America is exposed to an additional threat: dengue disease. Caused by a mosquito-borne virus, this disease has symptoms similar to those of Covid-19. It has affected more than 23,000 people since 2019, causing more than 1500 deaths in the region. As a result, Latin American countries are currently facing a double epidemic threat, which is responsible for the complete collapse of their healthcare system. The under-reported threat of dengue in the Latin American and Caribbean region is related to another, more well-known phenomenon: climate change. Besides causing major upheavals in weather patterns, including a scarcity of water resources and crops, increasingly frequent heatwaves and other environmental disasters, the climate emergency raises new questions related to the current pandemic. Will climate change cause more epidemics in the years to come? In this regard, Latin America perfectly embodies the link between the two phenomena and exemplifies the challenges we will have to deal with in a post-Covid world. The region can be compared to a continent-wide laboratory, with diagnosed cases of dengue skyrocketing amid the coronavirus health crisis turmoil. Indeed, the region is facing the worst dengue epidemic in its history. In this part of the world alone, more than three million people were affected by the ‘tropical flu’ in 2019. It mainly affects Brazil, with more than two million reported cases, but it has not spared other countries, such as Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador. At this pace, 2020 is shaping up to be worse than 2019, and the dire predictions of the scientific community on the worsening of the climate crisis make the picture even bleaker.

The melting of the cryosphere, the Earth’s solid surface, and the rise in temperatures increase the risk of our exposure to pathogens, but

so do the destruction of biodiversity and deforestation. and economy if global warming is not acknowledged This raises fears that the Covid-19 pandemic is only one and tackled. of the firsts to come if the degradation of the environment does not cease. As epidemics are one of the many With the hypothesis that new pandemics are going to health risks associated with rising global temperatures, emerge, we must take lessons from how the Covid-19 they are likely to spread on a much vaster scale, if crisis has arisen and been dealt with. According to a greenhouse gas emissions continue to surge. Another review published by the WHO, for viruses carried by risk linked to climate change is the spread of viruses mosquitoes, ‘the primary factor of dissemination is to new geographical areas due to the migration of cer- the introduction of the species somewhere. If there tain species potentially carrying human pathogens. was no globalization, world-wide trade, obviously A study, published in the scientific journal PLoS this there wouldn’t be these problems. We also live more year, showed that the rise in global temperatures was in cities and mosquitoes adapt to these environments’. likely to modify the behaviour of certain mosquitoes For instance, we use artificial containers (flower pots, of the Aedes family, including Aedes aegypti and Aedes water trays, gutters, refillable cans, garbage cans, etc.) albopictus (also known as the tiger mosquito), which which allow mosquitoes to lay their eggs in a humid are the main vectors of dengue, yellow fever, Zika virus environment favourable to their development, and we, infection and chikungunya. Rising temperatures could the hosts, are constantly moving. Our mobility and the encourage these insects to move further north, as far idea of development itself, are directly responsible for as Alaska, and may have an equally destructive effect mosquitoes’ propagation around the world and the on healthcare systems worldwide. latter is also an immediate factor of According to the same study, the number of Europeans exposed to “New viruses like Covid-19 can climate change. Accelerated levels of globalisation and climate change will perhaps exacerbate further dengue viruses transmitted by mosquitoes of the Aedes family could double directly emerge” epidemics, not only in Latin America but worldwide. by the end of the century. Another study on the subject estimated The reduction of healthcare services that 2.4 billion people would be is also a major cause of the rise of epidemics such as exposed to the tiger mosquito by 2050, especially in Covid-19 or dengue. European researchers estimate France, Ireland, southern that, beyond global warming which contributes to inGreat Britain, in the north-west of the Iberian penin- creasing the distribution area of mosquitoes, the desula, in the east of the United States and China. The crease in public services responsible for their control area of distribution of this mosquito could, however, will have significant effects on human health in the decrease in Central Africa, southern Europe, South future. For instance, in Honduras, the health system Asia and northern South America, due to the climate is already strained by dengue, and the country has becoming hot and dry. This shows that the dengue set out to build hospitals to deal with the double epoutburst faced by Latin America at the moment, de- idemic. More than 10,000 dengue patients have been spite seeming far from the European reality, is likely to hospitalised in Honduras since the start of the year. later affect Europe and other regions which have been The 2019 death toll was 180 people, and around thirrelatively immune. Therefore, while thinking about liv- ty public hospitals were overwhelmed by the influx of ing in a post-Covid world, it is necessary to rethink the some 113,000 patients. “We must not lower our guard ways in which we must adapt to global warming. How against dengue fever, even if the coronavirus is here can we prevent the climate crisis from reaching the and is affecting the population,” warned Gustavo Urbipoint of no return? In regards to the coronavirus out- na, a specialist in the Honduran ministry of health. The burst and the extreme difficulties encountered by the ability to set up proper infrastructures and sanitation healthcare systems, we are faced with the necessity to facilities also play a major role in our abilities to tacktake into account the protection of the environment le mosquito-borne diseases like dengue. For instance, in any future political decision. Crucial issues such as in Brazil, the survival and spread of mosquitoes of the our health, our vulnerability in a post-Covid world, and genus Aedes are amplified by poor sanitation. Furthersocio-economic inequalities are intimately linked to more, a common practice in Latin America of storing climate change. New viruses like Covid-19 can directly water in containers forms also the perfect breeding emerge and undermine both our healthcare systems

site. Mosquitoes use them to lay eggs and reproduce, creating increased vector densities and virus transmission. The NGO Human Right Watch concludes that, without sanitation support and communication with the population, epidemics will only continue, in scale and severity. As a result, throughout Latin America, specialised patrols roam the neighbourhoods to ensure residents avoid mosquito breeding grounds, also emptying water from all possible receptacles.

Latin America is therefore facing a multi-epidemic crisis and exemplifies the challenges of coping with the new threats these new diseases bring. One can assume that what Latin America has been facing in the past few months is not going to remain an isolated case in the near future. Even if our healthcare systems radically improve, the threat of multiple-epidemics related to global warming goes beyond the Latin American borders. The main concern is global warming itself. A problem that, in its very denomination, is hugely negated by the West, often blaming developing countries and making them directly responsible for gas emissions as newly industrialised countries. Most Latin American countries are still labelled as developing, bearing the cost of Western denial. This goes hand in hand with a refusal of Western and other highly industrial countries to lower their environmental impact and acknowledge the role played by global warming in politics, healthcare, economics and so forth. Indeed, it can be said that not only does global warming play a major role in the propagation of global epidemics, but there is also a deep Westerncentrism over the notion of global warming itself, highlighted by the Covid-19 crisis. This notion must be demystified and dismantled if we are to find appropriate and collective solutions to tackle the climate crisis before it is too late.

Photo: COVID-19 patients in a field hospital inside a gym in Santo Andre, Sao Paulo, Andre Penner, AP Photo, 2020.