Challenges to Mitigating the Urban Health Burden of Mosquito-Borne Diseases in the Face of Climate Change

Abstract

Cities worldwide are facing ever-increasing pressure to develop mitigation strategies for all sectors to deal with the impacts of climate change. Cities are expected to house 70% of the world’s population by 2050, and developing related resilient health systems is a significant challenge. Because of their physical nature, cities’ surface temperatures are often substantially higher than that of the surrounding rural areas, generating the so-called Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. Whilst considerable emphasis has been placed on strategies to mitigate against the UHI-associated negative health effects of heat and pollution in cities, mosquito-borne diseases have largely been ignored. However, the World Health Organization estimates that one of the main consequences of global warming will be an increased burden of mosquito-borne diseases, many of which have an urban facet to their epidemiology and thus the global population exposed to these pathogens will steadily increase. Current health mitigation strategies for heat and pollution, for example, may, however, be detrimental for mosquito-borne diseases. Implementation of multi-sectoral strategies that can benefit many sectors (such as water, labor, and health) do exist or can be envisaged and would enable optimal use of the meagre resources available. Discussion among multi-sectoral stakeholders should be actively encouraged.

The chemical code for attracting Culex mosquitoes

“…While recent successes in vector control have led to major reductions in vector-borne diseases, there are still many examples of resurgence and spread of vector populations, exacerbated by increased insecticide resistance (Amelia-Yap et al, 2018;Riveron et al, 2018), global trade (Lillepold et al, 2019), travel (Lillepold et al, 2019) and climate change (Rocklov and Dubrow, 2020;Colon-Gonzalez et al, 2021;Ligsay et al, 2021). Odor-baited traps are deemed a viable component for future integrated vector management programmes, which can be used for both surveillance and control of vector mosquitoes (Mafra-Neto and Dekker, 2019).…”

Assessing Entomological and Epidemiological Efficacy of Pyriproxyfen-Treated Ovitraps in the Reduction of Aedes Species: A Quasi-Experiment on Dengue Infection Using Saliva Samples

“…The impact of urban mosquito-borne diseases upon public health is not only restricted to dengue, as evidenced by the recent outbreaks of other arboviruses, notably Zika and chikungunya, along with the continuing burden of urban malaria in India by Anopheles stephensi , which has also adapted to urban environments [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ]. The threat from arboviruses in urban settings is no longer restricted to the tropics and sub-tropics, as many invasive mosquito vectors can survive the temperate climates found in their newly invaded habitat [ 12 , 13 , 14 ]. Outbreaks of many arboviral diseases, including dengue, chikungunya, and West Nile, have occurred in Europe and the US [ 15 , 16 , 17 ].…”

“…Additionally, global climate warming is projected to expand the range of mosquito vectors into new areas extending the transmission season in current endemic settings, and increasing the mosquito’s vectorial capacity [ 18 , 19 ]. Thus, urban mosquito-borne diseases are projected to impose an ever-increasing burden upon public health within affected societies and require urgent attention [ 14 ]. With the absence of buy-in for potentially effective vaccines, reducing human contact with vectors is the only way to reduce the burden of dengue and other mosquito-borne diseases [ 20 ].…”

Recombinant Mosquito Densovirus with Bti Toxins Significantly Improves Pathogenicity against Aedes albopictus

“…Mosquitoes are crucial vectors in the epidemiology of numerous human viral diseases, such as dengue, chikungunya, malaria, yellow fever, and the Zika virus disease, all of which provide significant health hazards as well as economic losses worldwide [1][2][3]. Vector biocontrol strategies include the use of entomopathogenic bacteria, such as Bacillus spp.…”