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The likely culprit? Climate change, which has long been an issue affecting things like migratory patterns in animals, melting glaciers—which could release new viruses we are not prepared to treat—and even animal size.
In 2019, there was an EEEV outbreak in the U.S. that affected 36 people. That might not seem like a high number, but EEEV is very uncommon, making 36 confirmed cases in a year is a concerning amount.
To make matters worse, there is no treatment or cure for EEEV which is fatal in 30 percent of people who contract it per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) said that “2019 has been a particularly deadly year for the [EEEV] in the United States,” citing the aforementioned 36 cases which spread across eight states with 13 of the cases being fatal.
EEEV spreads to humans via mosquito bite. It does not spread from person to person, other animals to people, or people to animals. The disease can then cause encephalitis—swelling of the brain—that can be deadly. In instances when EEEV is not fatal, it can leave a person with neurological problems, ranging from “mild brain dysfunction to severe intellectual impairment,” says the CDC.
EEEV symptoms include fever, chills, arthralgia, and myalgia. The CDC adds that people tend to make a full recovery when “there is no central nervous system involvement.” In addition to being fatal and causing neurological issues in humans, EEEV is also a health hazard to horses, which is where the virus' name originates. The University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine reports that EEEV is “most commonly seen in horses in the southeastern U.S.”
EEEV is not new in the U.S. In a 2013 paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine, entomologist Theodore Andreadis and a colleague said:
Since the discovery of the EEE virus in the 1930s, cases in humans had been sporadic and restricted to areas south of northern New England until a disease outbreak struck New Hampshire in 2005. Over the past decade, we have witnessed a sustained resurgence of EEE virus activity within longstanding foci in the northeastern United States and northward expansion into regions where the virus was historically rare or previously unknown, including northern New England and eastern Canada.Additionally, the paper authors wrote that virus transmission is “highly seasonal and dependent on weather conditions,” with the most favorable being “forested swamp habitats” where mosquitoes thrive.
With winters becoming milder and summers getting warmer, the weather is continually changing to favor the birth and spread of disease-carrying mosquitoes.
“Milder winters, in turn, may enhance the overwintering survival of mosquito vectors and allow mosquitoes to extend their range northward. Warmer summer conditions accelerate the generation time of mosquitoes, their frequency of blood feeding, and the rate of virus replication within mosquitoes,” say Andreadis and colleague.
If climate change continues following the current trajectory, we could be facing a slew of viruses we're not used to treating in the coming decades.
“These environmental changes have the potential to alter disease risk by increasing the abundance and distribution of the vector, lengthening the virus-transmission season, and increasing the intensity of virus transmission,” conclude the paper authors.
Links
- Climate Change Will Expose Half of World’s Population to Disease-Spreading Mosquitoes By 2050
- Increased risk of endemic mosquito-borne diseases in Canada due to climate change
- Climate Change May Mean More Risky Mosquitoes
- Climate change linked to the spread of mosquito-borne viruses like EEE
- The 10 Best Tools for Keeping Mosquitos Away
- Scientists Are Testing Mosquito Elimination Tech
- The 5 Best Bug Zappers for Mosquitos
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