Warming brings subtropical diseases
Published: 18 Nov. 2009, 22:42
A 40-year-old farmer surnamed Kim in Yangju, Gyeonggi, caught scrub typhus, a disease more widely known as tsutsugamushi, while climbing a mountain early this month. Two other farmers contracted the disease, transmitted by some species of trombiculid mites, this year in the small city.
Lee Eun-ju, a medical staff member at a public health center in Yangju, says there were almost no tsutsugamushi patients until about 10 years ago and the recent outbreak of the disease seems to originate from a warming climate.
Yangju is not the only city seeing such a trend. With the Korean Peninsula increasingly taking on weather features seen in subtropical regions, patients contracting not only tsutsugamushi but also other subtropical diseases - such as malaria, dysentery, and vibrio blood poisoning - have increased in recent years. Since the country saw two outbreaks of malaria in 1993, the annual tally of malaria patients jumped to 1,017 last year. Tsutsugamushi patients also surged to 6,052 last year. There were only 200 such cases in the early 1990s.
The areas where trombiculid mites were discovered have moved north over the past decade. In the past, tsutsugamushi patients were mostly from Jeolla and Gyeongsang in the southern part of the peninsula. Last year, the number of tsutsugamushi cases in Gyeonggi, to the north, totaled 509. There were 130 such cases in 2001.
With a longer summer and shorter fall, malaria, which used to disappear around September, is still prevalent until November.
That trend applies to other subtropical diseases, as well.
Compared with the 1990s when the average temperature was 12 degrees Celsius (53.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the average temperature on the Korean Peninsula in the 2000s increased to 12.3 degrees, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration. The average temperature of the peninsula in September was up another 0.8 degree compared with past averages.
Climate change has brought other changes. A report the United Nations Population Fund released yesterday predicts that the recent climate change as a result of global warming will cause deteriorating living conditions, spurring massive population relocations.
In Africa alone, some 10 million people in the past two decades have either moved or otherwise lost their homes due to climate change, including the spread of deserts. Worldwide, the total is estimated at 25 million. The report shows a notable amount of weather-related disasters, such as floods and typhoons, have occurred since 2000.
The major victims of such climate change are women, the report says. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, women produce half of all farm products globally. In underdeveloped countries, the portion shoots up to 80 percent. A statement from the UN Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland last December said that women “represent perhaps the greatest source of untapped potential in the global effort to overcome the challenges of climate change.”
It also said their responsibilities in families and in communities as farmers and as stewards of natural resources make them uniquely positioned to develop strategies for adapting to the changing environmental conditions.
It called on the UN and member states to include a gender dimension in their response to climate change and in their ongoing and future negotiations of climate change agreements.
By Shin Sung-sik, Seo Ji-eun [[email protected]]
Lee Eun-ju, a medical staff member at a public health center in Yangju, says there were almost no tsutsugamushi patients until about 10 years ago and the recent outbreak of the disease seems to originate from a warming climate.
Yangju is not the only city seeing such a trend. With the Korean Peninsula increasingly taking on weather features seen in subtropical regions, patients contracting not only tsutsugamushi but also other subtropical diseases - such as malaria, dysentery, and vibrio blood poisoning - have increased in recent years. Since the country saw two outbreaks of malaria in 1993, the annual tally of malaria patients jumped to 1,017 last year. Tsutsugamushi patients also surged to 6,052 last year. There were only 200 such cases in the early 1990s.
The areas where trombiculid mites were discovered have moved north over the past decade. In the past, tsutsugamushi patients were mostly from Jeolla and Gyeongsang in the southern part of the peninsula. Last year, the number of tsutsugamushi cases in Gyeonggi, to the north, totaled 509. There were 130 such cases in 2001.
With a longer summer and shorter fall, malaria, which used to disappear around September, is still prevalent until November.
That trend applies to other subtropical diseases, as well.
Compared with the 1990s when the average temperature was 12 degrees Celsius (53.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the average temperature on the Korean Peninsula in the 2000s increased to 12.3 degrees, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration. The average temperature of the peninsula in September was up another 0.8 degree compared with past averages.
Climate change has brought other changes. A report the United Nations Population Fund released yesterday predicts that the recent climate change as a result of global warming will cause deteriorating living conditions, spurring massive population relocations.
In Africa alone, some 10 million people in the past two decades have either moved or otherwise lost their homes due to climate change, including the spread of deserts. Worldwide, the total is estimated at 25 million. The report shows a notable amount of weather-related disasters, such as floods and typhoons, have occurred since 2000.
The major victims of such climate change are women, the report says. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, women produce half of all farm products globally. In underdeveloped countries, the portion shoots up to 80 percent. A statement from the UN Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland last December said that women “represent perhaps the greatest source of untapped potential in the global effort to overcome the challenges of climate change.”
It also said their responsibilities in families and in communities as farmers and as stewards of natural resources make them uniquely positioned to develop strategies for adapting to the changing environmental conditions.
It called on the UN and member states to include a gender dimension in their response to climate change and in their ongoing and future negotiations of climate change agreements.
By Shin Sung-sik, Seo Ji-eun [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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