How Climate Change Is Ushering in a New Pandemic Era
A warming world is expanding the range of deadly diseases and risking an explosion of new zoonotic pathogens from the likes of bats, mosquitoes, and ticks
Jeff Goodell
December 7, 2020 7:00AM EST
Illustration by Jason Holley for Rolling Stone
Jennifer Jones spent most of her summer at home, as so many of us did, trying to avoid the plague. Jones, 45, lives in Tavernier, a community in the Florida Keys just south of Key Largo, and passed a lot of time in her yard, puttering around with plants. At some point, a mosquito landed on her. That’s not unusual in Florida, and Jones doesn’t remember this mosquito bite in particular. But it was not a garden-variety backyard mosquito. It was Aedes aegypti, an exquisitely designed killing machine that is one of the most deadly animals in human history. By one count, half the people who have ever lived have been killed by mosquito-borne pathogens. Aedes aegypti, which first arrived in North America on slave ships in the 17th century, is capable of carrying a whole arsenal of dangerous diseases, from yellow fever to Zika.
The mosquito could sense the heat of Jones’ body and smell CO2 on her breath from more than 30 feet away. It landed on her exposed flesh, likely her arm or lower leg. The mosquito was a female — only females drink blood, which they need to produce their eggs. It worked quickly, knowing, in the genetic coding of its insect brain, that the longer it lingered the less likely it was to survive. First, it spit on Jones’ skin to numb it so she wouldn’t be alerted to the bite. Then it plunged its syringe-like proboscis, which is actually a sheath containing six needles, into Jones’ skin. It probed around until it found an ideal place to tap into a blood vessel. Then it inserted two needles, each one serrated like a carving knife, to saw a hole in Jones’ flesh. Two more needles pried the hole open, which allowed it to insert what looks like a tiny hypodermic syringe into Jones’ blood vessel. And here is the important part: As it sucked out the blood, the mosquito spit its own saliva into Jones’ veins, which contains an anticoagulant that prevents the blood from clotting at the puncture site. In this case, it also contained a virus that causes a tropical disease called dengue fever. When its appetite was sated and its belly full of blood, the mosquito flew off.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/climate-change-risks-infectious-diseases-covid-19-ebola-dengue-1098923/amp/
