The evidence of drastic changes in global climate

Running head: HEALTH CARE
Health care
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1HEALTH CARE
Introduction:
With the evidence of drastic changes in global climate, tracking climate changes and its
implication has become one of the significant priorities for health agencies in the 21st century.
Some of the direct effects of climate change that has been witnessed around the world include
rise in droughts and floods, increase in air pollution and spread of vector borne diseases,
malnutrition, food insecurity and displacement related issues (Watts et al., 2015). Like health
professional and members of Global Climate agencies, nurses can play an instrumental role in
responding to health impact of climate change. To further explore the role of nurse in this area,
this paper will first give a discussion on two health issue of exposure to vectors transmitting Zika
virus and respiratory problems in China and compared the issue with a developed and developing
country. Next, the paper will give an insight into the health promotion strategies that could be
implemented by the nurse to resolve the issue.
Comparison of health concerns in United States with other countries:
Zika virus transmission is one of the serious health concerns occurring in response to
temperature variability, which is a key factor leading to transmission of disease involving vector-
borne pathogen systems (Tesla et al., 2018). The World Health Organization declared it as a
public health emergency in February 2016. The review of the prevalence of Zika virus (ZIKV) in
US revealed detection of 268 reported ZIKV cases in Southern Florida and Texas (Castro et al.,
2017). Due to widespread local transmission, three territories of US including Puerto Rico
reported 37, 255 ZIKV cases. The main reason for risk of local transmission in various counties
of Florida and Texas was that the environment of these regions was environmentally suitable for
ZIKV transmission throughout the year (Sun et al., 2018). Outbreaks of ZIKV have been

2HEALTH CARE
recorded in other regions like Africa, Asia and the Pacific. In case of developing country like
Africa, ZIKV has been circulating in the country for decades. Similarly, for developed country
such as Australia, there is much lesser chance of ZIKV cases like Africa because most region of
Australia do not have Aedes aegypti mosquito, the vector that can lead to spread of ZIKV.
However, since all cases of Zika were caught overseas, Australian travelers must be informed
about the preventive steps to minimize risk of transmission (The Department of Health, 2018).
Unlike Australia, which is mainly threatened by overseas exposure to ZIKV vector, the
government has increased surveillance network to monitor the spread of the disease. With the
changing dynamics of global temperature, it can be concluded that America faces a difficult and
costly struggle in the future due to the high risk of transmission of ZIKV cases (Fellner, 2016).
Zika is mainly a disease which is mainly caused by aedes mosquitoes bite during the day.
Various studies explain why climate change is a risk factor for increases exposures to vectors
transmitting ZIKV. Ryan et al. (2018) reported about expansion of vector-borne disease as a
significant threat posed by climate change. Aedes aegypti is a breed of mosquito that mainly
thrives in warm, urban environments. The thermal tolerance level of this mosquito has had broad
repercussions on current and future outbreaks of ZIKV in different countries. For instance, Aedes
aegypti have higher thermal optimum for transmission. Thus, in the event of severe climate
change, the exposure to the ZIKV vector is likely to shift geographically and seasonally in
different parts of the world. In response to such possibilities of ZIKV transmission in response to
climate change, US federal government as well as the other developing countries must be
vigilant to implement innovative control measures so that increase in prevalence of vector borne
disease like ZIKV could be controlled in the event of global warming and climate change.