Dengue, chikungunya creeping into Europe as climate warms, study warns
PARIS, May 16 — The feverish diseases dengue and chikungunya could soon become endemic in Europe as the tiger mosquitoes that transmit these viruses spread farther north due to global warming, according to new research published Thursday.
Roughly half the world's population is already at risk of contracting the two diseases, which were once mainly confined to tropical regions.
Both viruses cause fevers and can be deadly in rare cases, spread by the mosquitoes Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus.
The latter, which is known as the tiger mosquito, is venturing further north as the world warms because of human-driven climate change.
The new study, published in the Lancet Planetary Health journal, analyses the impact a number of factors including the climate have had on the spread of the two diseases in Europe over the last 35 years.
The frequency and severity of outbreaks have increased since 2010 as temperatures have risen, according to the study.
Yet just over 300 cases of dengue were recorded in the European Union in 2024 — the hottest year on record — compared to 275 over the previous 15 years.
Dengue outbreaks have now hit Italy, Croatia, France and Spain.
'Our findings highlight that the EU is transitioning from sporadic outbreaks of Aedes-borne diseases towards an endemic state,' it said.
The higher temperatures soar, the greater the risk of outbreaks caused by tiger mosquitoes, the European research team said.
Under worst-case climate change scenarios, outbreaks of both diseases could rise to five times the current rate by 2060, they projected.
Outbreaks have been more common in wealthier areas, suggesting that better testing is able to spot the virus — and that cases could be going undetected in poorer areas, the study suggested.
The French Indian Ocean island of Reunion has recently endured a deadly outbreak of chikungunya.
Tiger mosquitoes can also transmit the zika and West Nile viruses, which were not studied in the latest research. — AFP
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Malay Mail
a day ago
- Malay Mail
From brain tumour to Olympic gold: Jeremy Flores' inspiring comeback
PARIS, June 7 — Jeremy Flores faced numerous challenges in the water as he carved himself a hugely successful surfing career but nothing prepared the Frenchman for the tumultuous months that followed his retirement in 2021. Within months of stepping away from competition, Flores, the most successful male European in surfing history, was diagnosed with a brain tumour that turned his life upside down. He survived to tell the tale, after years of silence, in a new documentary 'Dos au mur' ('Backs to the Wall') which premiered in Paris on Wednesday. 'I told myself it was time to talk about it,' he told AFP. 'I needed to get it off my chest, to send a message to my children and others who might need it. This was clearly the hardest ordeal of my life.' Inoperable Flores was born in Reunion, an island in the Indian Ocean which is a paradise for surfers - in spite of the large number of sharks. His father Patrick coached him from the age of three and he duly became one of the best in the world, competing for 15 years on the professional circuit, winning four prestigious championship tour events. Blessed with talent in the tubes, he was also quick with his temper. 'I think I've got the most fines on the professional tour,' he admits in the film which is directed by Julie and Vincent Kardasik. Yet in 2021, having become a father for the second time, he decided to retire without really explaining why. 'For several years, I had a lot of migraines,' he tells AFP. 'I was always tired, unmotivated.' A few months later, he was diagnosed with a tumour at the base of his brain. Worse yet, many surgeons considered it inoperable. 'That explained why I wasn't feeling my best. The news shattered me,' admits Flores. Brain tumour survival rates do not make pretty reading: just a third make it through five years although that figure improves for people under 40, according to medical figures in France. In theory Flores stood a fighting chance if he could find a surgeon who would operate. Fortunately he did. In 2022, he finally underwent brain surgery in Montpellier supervised by pioneering neurosurgeon Hugues Duffau. Flores was awake for all of it. 'The operation went well,' he recalls, still traumatised by the operation and the effects. 'After that, it was a mission. I'd been warned. I had to relearn how to speak, write, and read. 'I suffered significant memory loss. My children had become strangers to me.' But with the constant support of his wife Hinarani de Longeaux, a model and former Miss Tahiti winner, Flores began to rebuild. He also had the support of the surf community, notably his old friend and rival Kelly Slater. 'He called me almost every day, before, during, and after the operation,' says Flores. 'I was lucky to have great support.' Olympic gold A little over a year after the operation, he was invited by the French Surfing Federation to manage the surf team at the 2024 Olympics: the event was to take place in Teahupo'o, Tahiti, where he had lived for several years. 'I thought: why not? This will allow me to stimulate my brain, and surfing is what I do best,' he says. The team consisted of four surfers who included his sister-in-law Vahine Fierro, and a young Tahitian Kauli Vaast who, according to Flores, was a natural on the pro tour. The veteran turned coach convinced them that they had what it took to win everything. And it worked. Fierro won the Tahiti Pro in 2024, the first French winner since Flores in 2015 while the team picked up two Olympic medals. Johanne Defay took bronze in the women's shortboard while Vaast went on to win gold in the men's shortboard, with Flores screaming his support from the water during every round. 'It was truly special, the highlight of my career,' says Flores. 'He's my little brother, and I'm very attached to the notion of passing on the knowledge. I experienced it as a cycle.' Three years after his operation, Flores' memory is 'gradually returning'. The tumour, however, is still there, a reminder of the dark days of 2021 even if it no longer haunts him. 'I continue to monitor it with MRIs every three months,' says Flores with a clear-eyed calm. 'You have to keep an eye on its size, take it seriously, but above all, you have to keep moving forward.' — AFP
Malay Mail
2 days ago
- Malay Mail
TotalEnergies on trial: Greenwashing claims could set legal precedent in France
PARIS, June 6 — Environmental groups took TotalEnergies to court yesterday in a landmark Paris trial, accusing the French oil and gas giant of misleading consumers with ads that overstate its climate commitments and fossil fuel transition. It is the first such case in France targeting a major energy company and could set a legal precedent for corporate environmental advertising, which is starting to face tighter regulations in the European Union. The civil case stems from a March 2022 lawsuit by three environmental groups accusing TotalEnergies of 'misleading commercial practices' for saying it could reach carbon neutrality while continuing oil and gas production. The plaintiffs took that legal route as 'greenwashing', or the act of claiming to be more environmentally responsible than in reality, is not specifically covered under French law. Starting in May 2021, TotalEnergies advertised its goal of 'carbon neutrality by 2050' and touted gas as 'the fossil fuel with the lowest greenhouse gas emissions'. At the time, the company had changed its name from Total to TotalEnergies to emphasise its investments in wind turbines and solar panels for electricity production. The plaintiffs allege that TotalEnergies made around 40 'false advertisements' in their lawsuit. 'For the average consumer, it is impossible to understand that TotalEnergies is actually expanding fossil fuel production,' said Clementine Baldon, a lawyer for the NGOs. The company's strategy 'will not help the energy transition', Baldon told the court. 'It delays it, even prevents it, and it contributes to putting the objectives of the Paris accord at risk,' she added, referring to the international agreement aimed at curbing climate change. TotalEnergies maintains it has not engaged in misleading commercial practices. 'Greenwashing would be to promise that the petrol sold in service stations is carbon neutral,' said the company's lawyer, Francoise Labrousse. TotalEnergies had 'never said its products are good for the climate', she added. TotalEnergies also insisted that the messages are part of its institutional communications regulated by financial authorities and not consumer law. It also argued the NGOs are misusing consumer protection rules to challenge its corporate strategy, and that no consumer organisation is party to the case. The NGOs want the Paris court to rule on the legality of ads presenting natural gas as essential to the energy transition. Climate experts say methane leaks from the gas industry have a powerful warming effect on the atmosphere. But TotalEnergies noted Greenpeace Belgium had previously considered natural gas useful for the energy transition and noted the group still uses fossil fuels in its boats. Correcting ads Environmental groups in recent years have turned to the courts to establish case law on companies misleading consumers by appearing more eco-friendly than they are. In Europe, courts ruled against Dutch airline KLM in 2024 and Germany's Lufthansa in March over misleading consumers about their efforts to reduce the environmental impact of flying. In Spain, utility Iberdrola failed to secure a conviction against Spanish oil and gas company Repsol over similar allegations of 'false' environmental claims. A greenwashing case against Australian oil and gas producer Santos, challenging its claim to be a 'clean fuels' company, has been ongoing since 2021. Other fossil fuel companies, under pressure from advertising regulators or legal complains, have had to scrap or correct ad campaigns. Shell, for example, received a warning in the UK and had to stop promoting 'carbon-neutral' gasoline in several countries, including Germany, the Netherlands and Canada. New European laws now ban vague, generic environmental claims such as 'green' or '100 per cent natural' product, and aim to require brands to more strictly substantiate environmental claims on labels and in advertising. TotalEnergies has said it plans to show that its messages 'about its name change, strategy and role in the energy transition are reliable and based on objective, verifiable data'. At the end of the hearing, the judge said a ruling would be given on October 23. — AFP
Free Malaysia Today
2 days ago
- Free Malaysia Today
In a hotter future, what comes after coral reefs die?
When stressed in hotter ocean waters, corals expel the microscopic algae that provides their characteristic colour and food source. Without respite, bleached corals slowly starve. (AFP pic) PARIS : The fate of coral reefs has been written with a degree of certainty rare in climate science: at 1.5°C of global warming, most are expected to die. This is not a far-off scenario. Scientists predict that the rise of 1.5 Celsius will be reached within a decade and that beyond that point, many coral simply cannot survive. It is important to accept this and ask what next 'rather than trying to hold onto the past', said David Obura, chair of IPBES, the UN's expert scientific panel on biodiversity. 'I wish it were different,' Obura, a Kenyan reef scientist and founding director of CORDIO East Africa, a marine research organisation, told AFP. 'We need to be pragmatic about it and ask those questions, and face up to what the likely future will be.' And yet, it is a subject few marine scientists care to dwell on. 'We are having a hard time imagining that all coral reefs really could die off,' said Melanie McField, a Caribbean reef expert, who described a 'sort of pre-traumatic stress syndrome' among her colleagues. 'But it is likely in the two-degree world we are rapidly accelerating to,' McField, founding director of the Healthy Reefs for Healthy People Initiative, told AFP. When stressed in hotter ocean waters, corals expel the microscopic algae that provides their characteristic colour and food source. Without respite, bleached corals slowly starve. At 1.5°C of warming relative to pre-industrial times, between 70-90% of coral reefs are expected to perish, according to the IPCC, the global authority on climate science. At 2°C, that number rises to 99%. Even with warming as it stands today – about 1.4°C – mass coral death is occurring, and many scientists believe the global collapse of tropical reefs may already be underway. What comes next Obura said it was not pessimistic to imagine a world without coral reefs, but an urgent question that scientists were 'only just starting to grapple with'. 'I see no reason to not be clear about where we are at this point in time,' Obura said. 'Let's be honest about that, and deal with the consequences.' Rather than disappear completely, coral reefs as they exist today will likely evolve into something very different, marine scientists on four continents told AFP. This would happen as slow-growing hard corals – the primary reef builders that underpin the ecosystem – die off, leaving behind white skeletons without living tissue. Gradually, these would be covered by algae and colonised by simpler organisms better able to withstand hotter oceans, like sponges, mussels, and weedy soft corals like sea fans. 'There will be less winners than there are losers,' said Tom Dallison, a marine scientist and strategic advisor to the International Coral Reef Initiative. These species would dominate this new underwater world. The dead coral beneath – weakened by ocean acidification, and buffeted by waves and storms – would erode over time into rubble. 'They will still exist, but they will just look very different. It is our responsibility to ensure the services they provide, and those that depend on them, are protected,' Dallison said. Dark horizon One quarter of all ocean species live among the world's corals. Smaller, sparser, less biodiverse reefs simply means fewer fish and other marine life. The collapse of reefs threatens in particular the estimated one billion people who rely on them for food, tourism income, and protection from coastal erosion and storms. But if protected and managed properly, these post-coral reefs could still be healthy, productive, attractive ecosystems that provide some economic benefit, said Obura. So far, the picture is fuzzy – research into this future has been very limited. Stretched resources have been prioritised for protecting coral and exploring novel ways to make reefs more climate resilient. But climate change is not the only thing threatening corals. Tackling pollution, harmful subsidies, overfishing and other drivers of coral demise would give 'the remaining places the best possible chance of making it through whatever eventual warming we have', Obura said. Conservation and restoration efforts were 'absolutely essential' but alone were like 'pushing a really heavy ball up a hill, and that hill is getting steeper', he added. Trying to save coral reefs 'is going to be extremely difficult' as long as we keep pouring carbon into the atmosphere, said Jean-Pierre Gattuso, an oceans expert from France's flagship scientific research institute, CNRS. But some coral had developed a level of thermal tolerance, he said, and research into restoring small reef areas with these resilient strains held promise. 'How do we work in this space when you have this sort of big dark event on the horizon? It's to make that dark event a little brighter,' said Dallison.
