There’s up to a 61 per cent chance that Toronto will become a host city for disease-carrying mosquitoes over the next 10 years due to climate change, a new study says.
Toronto-based company BlueDot recently released a study highlighting how shifting global surface temperatures will impact the probability of Aedes albopictus mosquitoes inhabiting various big cities over the next decade.
As a result, these mosquitoes could cause an increase in mosquito-borne diseases in the impacted cities, including chikungunya, dengue, yellow fever, and Zika.
“Over 10 years the current range of habitable environments to Aedes albopictus mosquitoes is projected to expand north including 400 km from New York State to Canada, 400 km into Northern Europe, 300 km into UK and Scotland, and 250 km from the Amazon Basin to northern Venezuela,” the report reads.
Select regions that will be “heavily impacted” by habitat expansion include Toronto, Beijing, London and New York.
This year, there’s a 39 per cent chance of hosting the mosquitoes in Toronto and that number jumps to 61 per cent in 2032, based on a population of 2.4 million residents.
“As new regions become breeding grounds for Aedes mosquitoes, and the diseases they transmit, new at-risk populations may be exposed to infection – and are uniquely at risk to large outbreaks,” the report says.
BlueDot says Aedes mosquitoes traditionally inhabit areas near the equator and are not able to survive in colder climates, but the impact of climate change suggests these insects could survive and spread in new locations.
Mosquito-borne diseases typically cause serious flu-like symptoms, such as fever, chills, headache and joint and muscle pain.
BlueDot says the study highlights the need for education and procurement of medical or other countermeasures, including insect repellant, appropriate clothing and vaccinations.
The research, which has not been peer-reviewed, is based on “a gradient-boosted regression tree model to forecast global climatic suitability for Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti mosquitoes under the projected climate of the next 10 years.” Climate change pathways in the study are driven by different socioeconomic assumptions and represent a best, most-likely and worst case scenario for how the climate will likely change over the next decade.
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