When you think of dangerous animals, the ones that typically spring to mind have teeth or claws. But what about wings and a proboscis?
In many countries, mosquitoes are nothing more than a nuisance. But in others, they spread tropical diseases that kill at least 700,000 people a year — more than any other animal, according to estimates from the World Health Organization. Unfortunately, they’re likely to get deadlier. As greenhouse-gas emissions make our planet hotter and wetter, disease-spreading mosquitoes are thriving.
With nations in South America battling some of the worst outbreaks of mosquito-borne disease in decades, the case of a British woman who caught dengue while on holiday in France last summer has sparked warnings about similar outbreaks in countries where insect-carried pestilence hasn’t previously been endemic. Climate change is making tropical diseases everybody’s problem.