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Italian village first host to outbreak of spreading tropical disease

Posted at 10:19 AM on 27 Dec 2007

Congratulations to Castiglione di Cervia, Italy, the first place in modern Europe to feel one dismal effect of a warming world: a tropical disease out of its natural habitat. This summer, more than 100 people in the village of 2,000 came down with fever, exhaustion, and terrible bone pain later found to be caused by chikungunya, a disease spread by warm-climate-lovin' tiger mosquitoes. "Climate change creates conditions that make it easier for this mosquito to survive and it opens the door to diseases that didn't exist here previously," says Dr. Roberto Bertollini of the World Health Organization. "This is a real issue. Now, today. It is not something a crazy environmentalist is warning about."

source: The New York Times

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Comments: (2 comments)

You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have a Gristmill account, log in below. If you don't have a Gristmill account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.

Not from climate change, but from immigration

and increased trade dependence. Or perhaps it's another one of those repercussions you people refuse to consider because it's an inconvenient truth? Did the writer of this piece get his or her jollies off writing this? It sure sounded like it to me. It certainly speaks volumes about the lack of ethical standards involved. You people are so like your slave owning ancestors it's shocking.

We've seen other tropical diseases spreading because of increased immigration and trade. West Nile, Malaria and other diseases. You can't lie and twist everything to suit your own ends. It just shows you for the cowardly propagandists that you are.

by JennyP at 12:18 PM on 27 Dec 2007

Science is a wonderful Thing

Dear JennyP,

The disease spread because the mosquitoes that carry it can now live in places they could not live before. That is because those places are warmer. That is because of global warming. It has nothing to do with immigration. Tourists could have carried them back.

patrick in Beijing

by bookerly at 1:31 PM on 27 Dec 2007

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