Climate change and malaria in India

The focus in this paper is to understand the likely influence of climate change on vector production and malaria transmission in India. A set of transmission windows typical to India have been developed, in terms of different temperature ranges for a particular range of relative humidity, by analysing the present climate trends and corresponding malaria incidences. Using these transmission window criteria, the most endemic malarious regions emerge as the central and eastern Indian regions of the country covering Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh, Orissa, West Bengal and Assam in the current climate conditions. Applying the same criteria under the future climate change conditions (results of HadRM2 using IS92a scenario) in 2050s, it is projected that malaria is likely to persist in Orissa, West Bengal and southern parts of Assam, bordering north of West Bengal. However, it may shift from the central Indian region to the south western coastal states of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala. Also the northern states, including Himachal Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram in the northeast may become malaria prone. The duration of the transmission windows is likely to widen in northern and western states and shorten in the southern states. The extent of vulnerability due to malaria depends on the prevailing socio-economic conditions. The increase or decrease in vulnerability due to climate change in the 2050s will therefore depend on the developmental path followed by India. Therefore it is important to understand the current adaptation mechanisms and improve the coping capacities of the vulnerable section of the population by helping to enhance their accessibility to health services, improved surveillance and forecasting technologies