With Climate Change, Infectious Disease Changes That Clinicians Need To Be Aware Of | ID Week 2024

Warmer weather and the sharp ups and downs of wetter conditions from flood and hurricanes and drier conditions from drought are changing where and when certain infectious diseases occur — and clinicians need to be on the look out for them, says Peter Rabinowitz, M.D.,M.P.H., a professor of environmental and occupational health sciences and director of the University of Washington School of Public Health Center for One Health Research in Seattle Rabinowitz was a speaker at two sessions on climate change this weekend at the 2024 ID Week meeting in Los Angeles.

Rabinowitz, who trained as a family physician, said it is important for clinicians to be aware of how climate change is altering the infectious diseases. Diseases not typically seen in certain areas may start to occur and become common as climate changes and becomes more volatile.

For example, warmer weather is going to mean an increase in some areas of some mosquito-borne diseases, such as dengue fever, Zika and chikungunya, Rabinowitz said in an interview with Managed Healthcare Executive.

Wet conditions after flooding from hurricanes and other extreme weather events is likely to make leptospirosis more common, Rabinowitz told MHE. Leptospirosis is caused by Leptospira bacteria in the urine of animals, and flood waters can become contaminated with animal urine.

Droughts are another climate change-driven factor altering the who, where and when of infectious diseases. They can change the range of ticks and therefore the risk of tick-borne disease, said Rabinowitz, who is also co-director of UW Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness. Extensive periods of dry weather can also mean the emergence of dust-borne diseases, such as Valley fever, he said. Valley fever, also called coccidioidomycosis, is a lung infection caused by inhaling the spores from the Coccidioides fungus that lives in the soil in dry areas of the U.S.