Global and Environmental Health Issues

Global and environmental health issues
GLOBAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH ISSUES
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Global and environmental health issues
GLOBAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH ISSUES
Question 1
Which are the three key components that determine the occurrence of vector-borne
diseases?
a) Vector and host abundance, local prevalence of disease-causing parasites and
pathogens and human population behavior and disease resilience
Question 2
In your own words, explain how climate change influences these three components to
increase the rate of vector-borne disease.
Climate change comes with new risks to both human and animals by increasing the
human and animal exposure to vector-borne diseases (VBD), particularly in the US. Some of the
vectors include flies, ticks and mosquitoes (Weaver, Charlier, Vasilakis & Lecuit, 2018). Some
factors like rising global temperatures would prolong the season and increase range of disease
carrying in a geographical area (Beard et al., 2016). Increased warm temperatures increase the
mosquitoes and other warm-weather vectors which most likely moves to high altitude areas and
new regions far from the equator. For instance, the season for Zika-carrying mosquitoes
lengthened due to the extended warm season in some areas of the United States (Beard et al.,
2016).
According to world health organization vector borne diseases account for 17% of
infectious diseases combined resulting to over 700, 000 deaths every year (World Health
Organization., 2017). Over 40, 000 deaths among this come from malaria infection with most
aged below 5 years. With all these risks the infections can however be prevented if there is

Global and environmental health issues
informed protective measures (World Health Organization., 2017). Over 3.9 billion people
across 128 countries are vulnerable for dengue with an estimation of 98 million every year.
The other climatic change such as humility, flooding and increased rains creates
favorable environment for vector breeding occurring quickly as eggs hatch quickly in a warmer
climate. After the August 2016, massive flooding event in Louisiana in led to the increased risk
for West Nile virus and Zika infections increased the habitats of breeding for Aedes mosquitoes
(Wu, Lu, Zhou, Chen & Xu, 2016). Insect vectors can take advantage of climate change like
flooding, prolonged rainfall, or warm weather due to their several physical characteristics. Some
of these characteristics include depending on external body warmth to survive as opposed to
depending on their own body temperatures for survival (Vonesch et al., 2016). Rising
temperatures may favour their survival, which increases risks to the new human population
(Parham et al., 2015). Temperature is also critical during pathogens incubation, which takes an
even shorter period. Water and humidity provide favourable environment for vector breeding
(Wu, Lu, Zhou, Chen & Xu, 2016). Areas with high humidity and water have the highest eggs
hatching which multiplies the survival of the vectors, which in turn is dangerous to humans.
Question 3
The ozone layer protects the earth from excessive:
b) Ultraviolet radiation
Question 4
Globalization has affected food around the globe in several different ways. Which of the
following is not one of the food-related impacts of globalization that we explored in Module 2?
a) Contaminated food due to differing standards and production practice
Question 5