The diseases transmitted by mosquitoes are spreading around the world, and especially in Europe, due to the climate crisis.

Researchers conclude that insects transmit diseases such as malaria and dengue, the prevalence of which has increased over the past 80 years as global warming has produced warmer and wetter conditions.

Professor Rachel Lowe, who leads the global health resilience team at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center in Spain, has warned that outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases are set to spread in unaffected parts of Northern Europe, Asia, North America and Australia in the coming decades.

The team is due to present at the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases global conference in Barcelona to warn that the world must be prepared for a sharp rise in these diseases.

“Global warming due to climate change means that the disease vectors that carry and transmit malaria and dengue fever can find a home in more areas, with outbreaks occurring in areas where people are likely to be immunologically naïve and systems public health unprepared”. Lowe said.

“The harsh reality is that longer warm seasons will widen the seasonal window for the spread of mosquito-borne diseases and favor increasingly frequent outbreaks that are increasingly complicated to treat.”

Dengue fever it was found primarily in tropical and subtropical regions, as freezing temperatures at night kill the insect’s larvae and eggs. Longer warm seasons and less frequent frosts mean it has become the fastest-growing mosquito-borne viral disease in the world and is spreading to Europe.

The Asian tiger mosquito ( Aedes albopictus) , carries dengue fever and has become established in 13 European countries by 2023: Italy, France, Spain, Malta, Monaco, San Marino, Gibraltar, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Greece and Portugal.

The insect thrives. Nine of the 10 most hospitable years for disease transmission have occurred since 2000, and the number of dengue cases reported to the WHO has increased eightfold over the past two decades, from 500,000 in 2000 to more than 5 million in 2019.

Lowe said the climate collapse would swirl that spread as droughts followed floods: “Droughts and floods linked to climate change can lead to greater transmission of the virus, with stored water providing additional breeding grounds for mosquitoes .

He said that if the current trajectory of high carbon emissions and population growth continues, the number of people living in areas with mosquito-borne diseases will double to 4.7 billion by the end of the century.

“Efforts should focus on strengthening surveillance with early warning and response systems similar to those seen in other parts of the world, to more effectively target limited resources to the areas most at risk for controlling and preventing disease outbreaks and saving lives”.

Climate collapse is also amplifying the threat from antimicrobial resistance, a separate presentation at the conference will warn.