HUMAN disease is emerging as one of the most sensitive, and distressing, indicators of climate change. As temperatures rise, mosquito-borne yellow fever has invaded Ethiopia, while dengue fever is spreading through the Americas and has reached Texas. Malarial mosquitoes have extended their range to highland regions of Africa that were until recently thought safe.
Kenya represents a microcosm of how climate can disrupt health. This year scientists confirmed that malaria is now being transmitted in the capital, Nairobi, for the first time since the 1930s. The worst floods for 40 years unleashed an unprecedented epidemic of waterborne cholera. And floodwaters in the arid northeast of the country caused Rift Valley fever, a cattle disease, to jump the species barrier and kill hundreds of people. Victims of the "bleeding disease" died so fast that doctors at first suspected it was anthrax.
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