Climate Change Bites: The Proliferation of Vector-Borne Diseases

According to the CDC, the spread of vector-borne diseases (those spread by blood-feeding bugs like mosquitos, ticks, and fleas) is linked to climate change. Rising temperatures and humidity influence breeding rates and can extend the range of disease-spreading bugs, bringing diseases to areas that have never seen a case. What are the ways that climate change can influence the spread of disease? How can we best track this spread to get ahead of it and avoid worse impacts? To find out what we need to know about the relationship between vector-borne diseases and climate change, we sit down with two experts in the field: Dr. Erin Mordecai, professor of biology and senior fellow at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment and Dr. Manisha Kulkarni, professor in the School of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Ottawa.