Spreading disease

Description: The majority of the spreading disease events came from articles by Dr. Paul Epstein, Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School. The most recently added points come from the published, peer-reviewed literature. We also spoke with Dr. Epstein directly to confirm some of the wording and use of certain locations. The goal was to find high elevation areas where the vector-borne diseases had not previously been found. (Note: mosquitoes are limited to certain temperatures and therefore elevations.) The focus was on the spread of these diseases (or the mosquitoes that carry them) to highland areas and previously unexposed populations. We also confirmed that the areas chosen have shown a warming trend according to the data presented by IPCC. Although some of these estimates are based on limited numbers of weather stations probably not at high elevations, they do give some indication of the temperature trend in that region.