Impact of past and on-going changes on climate and weather on vector-borne diseases transmission: a look at the evidence

BACKGROUND: The climate variables that directly influence vector-borne diseases’ ecosystems are mainly temperature and rainfall. This is not only because the vectors bionomics are strongly dependent upon these variables, but also because most of the elements of the systems are impacted, such as the host behavior and development and the pathogen amplification. The impact of the climate changes on the transmission patterns of these diseases is not easily understood, since many confounding factors are acting together. Consequently, knowledge of these impacts is often based on hypothesis derived from mathematical models. Nevertheless, some direct evidences can be found for several vector-borne diseases. MAIN BODY: Evidences of the impact of climate change are available for malaria, arbovirus diseases such as dengue, and many other parasitic and viral diseases such as Rift Valley Fever, Japanese encephalitis, human African trypanosomiasis and leishmaniasis. The effect of temperature and rainfall change as well as extreme events, were found to be the main cause for outbreaks and are alarming the global community. Among the main driving factors, climate strongly influences the geographical distribution of insect vectors, which is rapidly changing due to climate change. Further, in both models and direct evidences, climate change is seen to be affecting vector-borne diseases more strikingly in fringe of different climatic areas often in the border of transmission zones, which were once free of these diseases with human populations less immune and more receptive. The impact of climate change is also more devastating because of the unpreparedness of Public Health systems to provide adequate response to the events, even when climatic warning is available. Although evidences are strong at the regional and local levels, the studies on impact of climate change on vector-borne diseases and health are producing contradictory results at the global level. CONCLUSIONS: In this paper we discuss the current state of the results and draw on evidences from malaria, dengue and other vector-borne diseases to illustrate the state of current thinking and outline the need for further research to inform our predictions and response. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s40249-019-0565-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.