US researchers recently stated that climate change is most likely to have severe widespread impacts on human health with significant loss of life. The researchers also reported that global warming will put as much as 65 per cent of the world's population at risk of infection -- an increase of 20 per cent. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has already recorded "quantitative leaps" in malaria incidences in the recent years. Many diseases, including cholera and dengue that once were usually relegated to the tropical and sub-tropical countries, could possibly spread to different parts of the world, as rising temperatures and increasing rainfall change weather patterns of many countries. The implication: millions of life at risk. Doctors at the Harvard Medical School, USA, have detected cases of dengue fever (break-bone), malaria and Hantavirus linked to climate change. The US already recorded its first case of dengue fever in 1995. Worse, malaria is already 'invading' the country, with victims mainly from Houston, New Jersey, Michigan and many more states being reported with frightening regularity. Outbreaks in cholera has occurred in regions around Buenos Aires, Argentina, and thousands of Africans were affected by the Rift Valley fever in the past year.
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