world

Record heat waves and sultry weather hit many countries and regions of the world, causing extensive damage to them. On top of it, various kinds of epidemics have broken out and spread continuously.

Shortly ago, the Ministry of Public Health of Chile issued a public health alert as regards the serious damage caused by hantavirus.

In Chile, 46 people contracted the hantavirus infection and 18 of them died of it this year. The number reportedly more than doubled that of last year in lethality.

High temperatures breaking the records in succession, flood, heavy rain and other natural disasters caused by climate change create favourable conditions for the spread of various epidemics.

As harmful insects like mosquito, parasites and bacteria of various kinds multiply rapidly, infectious diseases with them as carriers are constantly spreading.

Recently, Chandipura virus infection causing encephalitis also broke out in India.

According to a TV broadcasting service in the country, 35 of 184 suspected cases of this infection were confirmed to have been infected with the virus and 22 children under 15 years of age died of it in Gujarat.

Named after Chandipura village of Maharashtra in west India as it was first discovered in the village in 1965, the virus is carried by bloodsucking flies and ticks.

Some days ago, the US health authorities announced that two people died of cyclosporosis, a parasitic infection accompanied by severe diarrhoea or abdominal pain.

According to the US Center for Disease Control, about 6 700 infected cases have been identified in the US since May 1, but it was the first time that people died of it.

As is seen above, the public health situation worsens due to the continued outbreaks of infectious diseases of various kinds, which neither caused serious damage nor broke out frequently in the past, as well as dengue fever, malaria and cholera, which have long harassed humankind.

Public health experts already argued that due to climate change diseases like dengue fever are spreading in the areas where there was no damage from epidemics previously and that attention should be paid to mosquito-borne infections such as dengue and chikungunya fevers and enteric infections like norovirus infection.

The situation requires that anti-epidemic measures be intensified to prevent the outbreak, influx and spread of the epidemics to control the spread of epidemics caused by climate change and that the rules of health be strictly observed.