{"id":17442,"date":"2016-02-05T13:16:19","date_gmt":"2016-02-05T18:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=17442"},"modified":"2016-02-05T13:16:19","modified_gmt":"2016-02-05T18:16:19","slug":"warming-linked-to-spread-of-zika-virus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=17442","title":{"rendered":"Warming linked to spread of zika virus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Warming linked to spread of zika virus<\/a><\/h3>\n
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The\u00a0Aedes egypti<\/em>\u00a0mosquito has now spread to 80% of Brazil.
\nImage:\u00a0<\/em>James Gathany via Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Scientists believe that record average temperatures may be helping to create an environment that has led to big increases in the number of disease-carrying mosquitoes.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

S\u00c3O PAULO, 5 February, 2016\u00a0<\/em>\u2013 The Zika virus, transmitted by the same mosquito as dengue fever, has spread with alarming speed throughout South and Central America \u2013 and scientists in Brazil suspect that global warming is exacerbating the problem.<\/p>\n

Although the virus, named after the Ugandan forest where it was first identified, usually causes only mild symptoms and often passes undetected, it has been associated with a surge in the number of cases of babies born with\u00a0microcephaly<\/a>, which can cause brain damage.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0World Health Organisation<\/a>\u00a0(WHO) has now declared the situation an\u00a0international public health emergency<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The numbers are alarming. Until last year, while dengue fever claimed many victims, Zika was unknown in Latin America. Since first detected in April 2014, there have been over 4,000 births of babies with suspected microcephaly in Brazil, compared with a previous yearly average of 154.<\/p>\n

Twenty-four countries in South and Central America have reported cases of microcephaly, and the rapid spread of the virus is being attributed by some scientists to global warming.<\/p>\n

Abnormal warming<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Last year was the\u00a0hottest on record<\/a>, with temperatures for the first time about 1\u00b0C above pre-industrial levels. But in some parts of Brazil, average temperatures rose by between 3\u00b0 and 5\u00b0C, according to data from the Centre for Weather Forecasting and Climate Studies at Brazil\u2019s\u00a0National Institute for Space Research<\/a>. The abnormal warming of the Pacific caused by El Ni\u00f1o contributed to this.<\/p>\n

Studies by Brazilian scientists show that the\u00a0Aedes egypti<\/em>\u00a0mosquito has spread to 80% of the country, an area of 6.9 million sq km (2.6 million square miles) \u2212 four times larger than a decade ago.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Warming linked to spread of zika virus The\u00a0Aedes egypti\u00a0mosquito has now spread to 80% of Brazil. Image:\u00a0James Gathany via Wikimedia Commons Scientists believe that record average temperatures may be helping to create an environment that has led to big increases in the number of disease-carrying mosquitoes. S\u00c3O PAULO, 5 February, 2016\u00a0\u2013 The Zika virus, transmitted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[90,9245,369,12244,6148,878,10233,12022],"class_list":["post-17442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-brazil","tag-climate-news-network","tag-global-warming","tag-jan-rocha","tag-mosquito","tag-who","tag-world-health-organization","tag-zika-virus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17443,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17442\/revisions\/17443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}