CLimat change and malaria Rising temperatures may partly explain increasing cases of malaria in regions of Africa, new research suggests. Temperatures in East African highlands have risen by half a degree Celsius in the last 50 years, scientists found. Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), they say this small rise may have doubled the number of malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Malaria has recently emerged in parts of the highlands, with climate change one possible explanation among many. The new research relies on a fresh analysis of temperature data for four highland locations in western Kenya, southwestern Uganda, southern Rwanda and northern Burundi. Previous researchers had analysed the same sites and not found evidence for warming, said Mercedes Pascual from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, US. So we revisited it with a longer data set and longer analysis up to 2002, she told the BBC News website. We found there has been a rise of about half a degree Celsius over 50 years, but we see it mainly from the end of the 1970s to the present.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Mar 2014 17:20:58 +0000
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