Climate Change And Globalization Driving Tropical Diseases Toward Texas

"West Nile. Dengue. Chikungunya. In recent years, this trio of potentially deadly mosquito-borne viruses carved out a definite niche in the growing catalogue of American anxieties.

It’s no wonder. The establishment of West Nile virus in the United States and growing number of dengue cases pose potentially serious threats to public health. Although there have been no dengue-related deaths in Texas since it resurfaced in the state in the 1980s, the World Health Organization estimates about 2.5 percent of those with severe dengue cases die. In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 5 percent of those hospitalized nationally with West Nile Virus in 2012 died. Chikungunya rarely leads to death, but its symptoms can be “severe and disabling,” the CDC says.

Moreover, since the turning of the new year, newcomer Zika has virtually eclipsed all three of those illnesses after it showed up in Brazil last year and then spread through other Latin American and Caribbean nations as far north as Mexico."

Greg Harman reports for Texas Climate News May 11, 2016.