Brazil: InfoDengue launches e-book on dengue and climate change
The InfoDengue system - developed by researchers at Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz) and Getulio Vargas (FGV) Foundations - for monitoring arboviruses, has launched a free e-book on dengue and climate change in peripheral territories. The book shows that high temperatures, changes in the rainfall cycle, and the incidence of droughts, resulting from the process of climate change and often intensified by human actions, favor the expansion of diseases transmitted by mosquitoes, such as Aedes aegypti, the vector of dengue, zika, chikungunya and yellow fever.
Fiocruz researcher and coordinator of InfoDengue Cláudia Codeço says the digital book can also be used as support material in classrooms and in health education activities. It fills the need for didactic materials for a large portion of the population that lives in places vulnerable to extreme weather events. The e-book seeks to bring reflection on this theme and actions that can be taken to confront the problem, Codeço said.
Report
InfoDengue's analyses reinforce the Countdown on Health and Climate Change report, developed in partnership with 35 institutions, including the World Health Organization (WHO). The report points out that global warming promotes the expansion of the mosquitoes responsible for dengue transmission, providing a warm and rainy environment conducive to the reproduction of insects and viruses.
The document was published in The Lancet magazine and shows that rainfall increases the number of breeding sites suitable for the development of mosquito larvae, providing appropriate environmental conditions for the spread of adult insects. Likewise, it accelerates the transmission of the virus between mosquitoes and humans.
The number of people living in vulnerable regions around the world who died as a result of droughts, floods and storms was 15 times higher than the number of those living in safe areas, according to data from the second volume of the Sixth Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC/UN).
InfoDengue
The InfoDengue system currently monitors dengue, zika, and chikungunya data throughout Brazil in an integrated manner. It analyzes epidemiological notification data, weather data, and data on diseases in social networks, correcting delays in data notifications to speed up decision making. The information is sent weekly to the health units.
