Effects of climate change on the introduction of new viral infections in endemic regions

Climate change is often associated with disastrous events and awful consequences for humans and animals, such as hotter summers, rising sea levels, and even health. Human activities including the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation have led to climate change. In the past decades many events have been occurring as a direct consequence of climate change; warmer winters, hotter summers and heat waves, drought, more hurricanes and precipitation. But also human and animal health has been affected by climate change. This review describes how West Nile Virus, Dengue Virus, and Bluetongue Virus have been able to survive in countries or regions where they have never been seen before. Due to warming temperatures many disease carrying insects are able to spread to other regions and countries where they have never been before. But also other factors of climate change such as increased precipitation and rising sea levels influence the spread of these insects and the diseases they carry. Nobody really knows what climate change is capable of doing, and what other consequences it might cause in the future if no action is taken. For this reason, it is hard for scientist to elucidate where viral diseases carried by vectors will spread to. Therefore, more research needs to be done on both climate change and disease transmission by vectors. Meanwhile, humans need to figure out another way to protect themselves from such diseases.