italian fever

In September of 2007, the Italian Ministry of Health confirmed 160 cases of chikungunya, a tropical disease related to dengue fever in the Ravenna region of Northern Italy. According to experts, the outbreak was the world's first outside the tropics. The apparent cause is the successful colonization of regions in Northern Italy by mosquitos that were once limited to the tropics. Experts called the phenomenon "worrying without being alarming."

I guess it is not alarming because there were few deaths. But as many Caribbean travelers know dengue fever is a rather devastating disease with lingering health problems. Due to some strange immunological phenomena it can recur and recurrences are often worse the second and third time around. Chikungunya is no different and symptoms can persist for several weeks with lingering arthritic after-effects that can last for years. As with many tropical diseases, there is no vaccine and no effective cure.

And don't look to the pharma industry to solve this problem. For years, pharmaceutical companies have ignored tropical diseases because the patients are not rich enough to support the type of blockbuster drugs that the industry needs to please its investors. Better to focus on yet another pill for heartburn. It will take decades to ramp up research into tropical diseases. But don't count on medicine. Medicine has not been very effective at controlling tropical diseases. The tropics are not an area where humans thrive. The only exceptions being island chains where infections can be controlled.

I bring this up because incidents like these are going to happen more frequently as the climate changes. Migration of plants and animals have been documented for nearly a decade now, but so far few cases of illness have been seen. That is likely to change over the next five to ten years. The migration of plant species is not limited to scientific studies anymore. Nurseries in the Northern parts of the East Coast are now selling plants that would not have survived there twenty years ago.

And with those plants and animals come pests that could really change our way of life. Because these pests do not just affect us directly. They can cause indirect damage that is life-threatening by affecting our food supplies. Widespread famine and disease may result from such incursions. Think about that when you fill up your SUV for your trip to the gym.