EYEWITNESS TO CHANGE
Climate Change Linked With Increases In Malaria
Photographs by John Stanmeyer While photographing an international story about malaria, John Stanmeyer noticed
a connection between deforestation, climate change, and the world’s deadliest disease. Malaria kills more people annually than any malady on earth. “While focusing on malaria in Peru, I noticed that deforestation in the Amazon region outside Iquitos is accelerating like crazy,” he said. “The reasons are well-known— humans encroaching into jungles and forested areas, companies harvesting timber, settlers planting food crops and farming fish in ponds. “Cutting down trees creates a perfect breeding ground for the mosquito-borne disease by creating stagnant pools of water that are heated by being exposed to the sun. Fish farming ponds also become breeding places for the anopheles mosquito, which carries malaria in tropical areas. Malaria cases in Peru have shot up almost 300 percent in the past 10 years. “And, of course, cutting down trees also contributes to global warming by diminishing the oxygen that is produced, and reducing the sink for carbon dioxide. So a link exists between the deforestation that is going on around the world in tropical areas, which causes climate change and also creates a higher incidence of malaria. Despite modern medicines and the use of DDT to kill mosquitoes, malaria cases are not diminishing worldwide.” In a more direct way, climate change is now suspected of being the culprit in malaria Thousands of Diptera mosquitoes swarm around the low heat of smoldering trees that were clear cut along the highway outside of Iquitos, Peru. At night, the harmless Diptera will be replaced by Anopheles mosquitoes, which carry malaria. Left: Peter
Anthony Guza is nearly buried behind a mountain of nets he has sewn at a Tanzanian textile factory in Dar es Salaam. Tanzania is the largest manufacturer of mosquito nets in Africa.
cases that have sprung up recently in southern Italy and Sicily. “The evidence is not yet conclusive,” Stanmeyer said, “but some scientists are trying to connect it to global warming because of the temperature increases, which allow the anopheles mosquito to move farther north.” Since malaria and climate change are linked, incidences of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) must also be brought into the mix, he pointed out. “I began to notice that every time I went to a hospital to photograph malaria victims I was directed to the AIDS ward. I realized that when you get AIDS your immune system is knocked down, so it’s almost a death sentence to get malaria. Your system just can’t handle fighting the malaria parasite. So malaria and AIDS have a tragic tango going on that deeply affects people in the tropics.”
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