Remember these claims?
- Climate change could see ‘significant’ rise in malaria deaths, study finds
- Mosquito-borne Diseases on the Uptick—Thanks to Global Warming
- Climate change increasing malaria risk, research reveals
From Our World in Data, over the past 15 years, malaria deaths have almost halved. (h/t to Bjorn Lomborg)
In the visualisations below we provide estimates of the total number of deaths from the World Health Organization (WHO) from 2000 to 2015, and the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), Global Burden of Disease (GBD) from 1990 to 2016. These estimates are notably different across various countries which affects the total number of reported deaths. IHME figures, as shown below, tend to be higher; they report deaths greater than 720,000 in 2015 versus only 438,000 from the WHO. Further information on the confidence intervals of WHO estimates, and a country-level comparison between these two sources is covered in our section on Data Quality & Definitions.
Malaria death estimates from WHO
Since the beginning of the 21st century, the WHO has published global estimates of the number of people that die from malaria. In these 15 years the global death toll has been cut in half: from 839,000 deaths in 2000 to 438,000 in 2015.
Africa is the world region that is most affected by malaria: In 2015, the African continent held 9 out of 10 malaria victims (click on ‘Expand’ to see this). But Africa is also the world region that has achieved most progress: from 2000 to 2015, African deaths from malaria were reduced from 764,000 to 395,000.
Malaria death estimates from IHME
The Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) provide estimates of malaria deaths from the year 1990 onwards. Over this period we see a clear rise-peak-fall trend, increasing from around 746,000 deaths in 1990; peaking at upwards of 990,000 in 2003; and then declining (although at varying rates) to around 720,000 in 2016.
These estimates are notably higher than those of the WHO (see Data Quality & Definitions for further details). Although divergent on the total number of malaria deaths, both the IHME and WHO estimate that 90 percent (9 in every 10 deaths) are from the African region.
More here: https://ourworldindata.org/malaria
The end result? Mann’s 1.8 million Malaria grant – “where do we ask for a refund’?
since we haven’t warmed in 15 years even their model would have predicted a reduction I bet 🙂
Maybe this is a better predictor of the worlds temperature.
If the graph were extended to 2018 I bet it will show the latest El Nino and maybe next year the La Nino.
What a disgrace those silly predictions were given that the hot spots for Malaria 100 years ago were outside of the tropics. Will this fill the papers??
“Maybe this is a better predictor of the worlds temperature.”
No you should always keep an eagle eye on the tourism numbers for the ultimate CO2 signature-
http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/tourism-2018
Well unless you’re a s#*thole riddled with malaria and other sundry unpleasantries, ceteris paribus and all that sciency stuff.
Mind you it’s not all sweat and serious sad sack sciency stuff down at the Climate Council as they do enjoy an invite to a BBQ, kicking up their heels and livening up the party- http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/bbq
Factual accuracy is not important to these claims because they were never about the facts in the first place. A typical ‘scare story ‘their value was in the impact and PR they got , the authors knowing full well the news would long move on before people got around to dealing with the ‘facts’ of their claims.
Therefore, realities ‘inability ‘ to follow the claims means nothing at all , which is standard practice in climate ‘science’ . Oddly this is how it is ‘settled ‘ in that this idea has no real reflection in reality, ‘settled ‘ is in the sense that the claim is stated not that the claim is or remains valid.
Posted in January
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/01/27/vox-attacks-the-sierra-club-for-their-anti-nuclear-anti-hydro-stance/comment-page-1/#comment-2730081
Below is a plot that quantifies the number of DEATHS EACH YEAR FROM MALARIA – between one and two million.
Note how malaria deaths increased steadily since 1980 (or earlier), after the banning of DDT in 1972, and how it started to decline after DDT was re-introduced.
I want to personally recognize the environmental movement for the key role it played in the banning of DDT and the resulting deaths of millions of people from malaria, especially children under five years of age. After this holocaust became fully apparent, many enviros continued to oppose DDT, based on flimsy evidence and unsupported allegations. DDT was only re-introduced circa year 2000.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1566107003466856&set=a.1012901982120697.1073741826.100002027142240&type=3&theater
Malaria and the DDT Story
The Institute of Economic Affairs, London, 2000
SUMMARY
• Malaria imposes colossal costs on mankind, in terms of lives
lost, ill health and impaired economic development. Over 1
million people, mostly children, die from the disease each
year and over 300 million fall sick.
• Malaria is primarily a developing country disease, but it was
not always so. Much of Europe and North America were
malarial up to the early 1950s, but spraying the pesticide DDT
eradicated the disease from these areas.
• Vector control (killing the anopheles mosquito) using DDT
was pursued as a one-weapon policy after World War II in
most malarial areas. While DDT was remarkably successful in
many areas, it was not always appropriate.
• Despite a lack of scientific evidence, DDT was banned in
many countries in the early 1970s following concerns about
its environmental and human health impacts. However, the
negative impacts from DDT use in agriculture, which led to
the concerns, are vastly different from the impacts of DDT
used in health control.
• The environmental impacts of DDT use in disease control are
negligible and indeed its use could be beneficial to the
environment. In addition, no scientific peer-reviewed study
has ever replicated any case of negative human health impacts
from DDT. Nevertheless, environmental pressure groups and
donor agencies disapprove of the use of DDT and actively
campaign for its withdrawal.
• Although malaria is a developing country problem, much of
the malaria control policy is formulated by developed country
agencies. As a result, developing countries are frequently
required to follow malaria control programmes that are not
necessarily ideal or even applicable to local circumstances.
• Following a more politically correct and purportedly
environmentally friendly policy, many health agencies, donor
agencies and governments withdrew their support for DDT,
and pesticide use in general, in disease control. The higher
costs of the alternatives and the development of mosquito
resistance to many alternatives increase the importance of
DDT use.
• Many countries have been encouraged to control malaria
with drug programmes and bed nets alone, repeating the
mistakes of following one-track control programmes of the
past.
• In December 2000, country delegates to the UNEP Persistent
Organic Pollutants (POPs) Convention Negotiating
Conference showed their support for the use of DDT in
disease control, by granting exemption and allowing
continued use of the chemical.
• Negative perceptions and pressure from wealthy developed
countries still frustrate the use of DDT in disease control and
add to the millions that die and suffer every year.
Source: https://iea.org.uk/themencode-pdf-viewer-sc/?file=/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/upldbook26pdf.pdf&settings=111111011&lang=en-GB#page=&zoom=75&pagemode=
The plot also correlates well with the decline of Chloroquine as an effective therapeutic agent and the general availability of Artemisinin from the mid 2000s. DDT became usable again against malaria because the ban stopped the huge scale uncontrolled spraying of the stuff that led to severe resistance problems, resistance that declined after the agricultural ban, used for controlled house interior spraying coupled with net use and vigorous elimination of standing water along with effective therapeutics it is a useful component of a antimalarial strategy. The ban didn’t bring Malaria surging back in the USA or Italy. Malaria levels surged in the late 1970s and early 1980s in Africa and Asia because of a complex mixture of factors, not least of which was complacency because the disease had been seen to be in retreat.
Once again skeptics are proven correct, and alarmists are proven wrong.
Only if they believe their own propaganda, the increase in DDT as an agricultural pesticide was rapidly making it useless for controlling malaria because the mosquitoes were rapidly developing resistance to it. Banning it for agricultural purposes allowed its continued strategic use in dwellings to fight malaria, such as on netting or on inside walls. The resistance to DDT also confers resistance to pyrethroid insecticides so banning its use for agricultural purposes aids the fight against malaria. By the time DDT use was banned in the US (1972) it was already in decline because it had become ineffective, mostly only used on cotton crops.
Macrae’s graph showing the increase in malaria deaths (in Africa mainly) shows the increase due to developing resistance to DDT not to its being banned (the Stockholm convention restricting its use to vector control didn’t come into effect until 2004), the US continued to export DDT in large quantities through the 80s
https://www.biomedcentral.com/about/press-centre/science-press-releases/25-feb-2014
The data are for malaria deaths, and as noted elsewhere, may be more an artifact of treatment, etc. Are there figures for initial infection rates, or more importantly infection biogeography, as opposed to mortality? I think that would be a more telling metric with regard to climate.
I found this related WHO report on infection rates. Again intervention is touted as the cause and it says nothing of climate being a factor.
https://borgenproject.org/malaria-infection-rate/
B…but my model says…
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1103681/
Through the fog of dimming memory I recall that our esteemed Mikie Mann got a grant to study global warming’s effects on the spread of malaria as a part of Obama’s economic stimulus package.
Maybe one of you smart young whips can dig it up. Pretty sure I saw it here on WUWT.
Tom Bakewell
Tom Bakewell February 8, 2018 at 5:41 pm
Through the fog of dimming memory I recall that our esteemed Mikie Mann got a grant to study global warming’s effects on the spread of malaria as a part of Obama’s economic stimulus package.
No, the principal investigator who got the grant was a professor of entomology who specializes in vector born diseases. Mann was one of several co-PIs who contributed a part of the research, not surprising that an entomologist would want a collaborator with expertise in climate change in such a study.
2009-2013 Quantifying the influence of environmental temperature on transmission of vector-borne diseases, NSF-EF [Principal Investigator: M. Thomas; Co-Investigators: R.G. Crane, M.E. Mann, A. Read, T. Scott (Penn State Univ.)] $1,884,991 [This needs investigated.
Found it! “Mann’s 1.8 million Malaria grant – “where do we ask for a refund’?”
The idea that mosquito vectored diseases would increase due to global warming was to scare Americans and Europeans. The CAGW folks claiming such was solely because they were ignorant or believed the rest of us were. My uncle born and raised in Arkansas in the 1930s had malaria as a boy. One of my bosses raised in southern Georgia had malaria as a boy. The last epidemic was in 1949 in Perry, Florida. How was it stopped? They put screens on everybody’s windows and quarantined those with the disease.
Unintended consequences strike again:
“Mosquito Nets Widely Misused for Fishing, Study Finds
Mosquito nets intended to prevent malaria are finding an unanticipated use as fishing nets all across the tropics, according to a new study.
These fine-meshed nets scoop up fish of all types and sizes indiscriminately. Experts are worried they are draining fish populations.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/mosquito-net-fishing/4247341.html