Mosquito tigre, ahora nuevo llegado a Europa gracias al calentamiento global.
Los cisnes negros empiezan a aparecer por todas partes - ( Antes del descubrimento de Australia, el mundo pensaba que todos los cisnes eran blancos y era totalmente irracional imaginar uno negro. Eso, ahora sabemos cambió, afirma Nassim Nicholas en su libro Black Swan, donde explica el rol de lo inesperado en la historia humana) ...
Informa el NYT que en agosto de este año algo muy extraño ocurrió en Castiglione di Cierva, Italia. La gente se empezó a enfermar con altas temperaturas y dolores oseos. El pánico apareció cuando los médicos no sabían que sucedía. Después de un mes de investigar, funcionarios de salud pública nacional encontraron que el culpable era un virus parecido al del dengue, el de la chikungunya, una enfermedad tropical del Océano Indico, que es transportada por el mosquito tigre. Copio del diario:
Aided by global warming and globalization, Castiglione di Cervia has the dubious distinction of playing host to the first outbreak in modern Europe of a disease that had previously been seen only in the tropics.
“By the time we got back the name and surname of the virus, our outbreak was over,” said Dr. Rafaella Angelini, director of the regional public health department in Ravenna. “When they told us it was chikungunya, it was not a problem for Ravenna any more. But I thought: this is a big problem for Europe.”
The epidemic proved that tropical viruses are now able to spread in new areas, far north of their previous range. The tiger mosquito, which first arrived in Ravenna three years ago, is thriving across southern Europe and even in France and Switzerland.
And if chikungunya can spread to Castiglione — “a place not special in any way,” Dr. Angelini said — there is no reason why it cannot go to other Italian villages. There is no reason why dengue, an even more debilitating tropical disease, cannot as well.
“This is the first case of an epidemic of a tropical disease in a developed, European country,” said Dr. Roberto Bertollini, director of the World Health Organization’s Health and Environment program. “Climate change creates conditions that make it easier for this mosquito to survive and it opens the door to diseases that didn’t exist here previously. This is a real issue. Now, today. It is not something a crazy environmentalist is warning about.”
Was he shocked to discover chikungunya in Italy, his native land? “We knew this would happen sooner or later,” he said. “We just didn’t know where or when.”
¿La próxima vez escucharemos de dengue en París o en Londres? ¿En la Ciudad de México? El programa de cambio climático de la capital al menos ya habla del problema (pdf). El calentamiento ya está aquí, y no se irá en siglos quizá. Es hora de adaptarnos, o como muchos en Africa, morir...
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