Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Global Warming Tourism


This little fellow is the Asian Tiger mosquito. With much of the world getting warmer, he's been arriving at all sorts of new places.
The Asian Tiger is being blamed for spreading chikungunya fever to Italy. The Italians have been dealing with an outbreak of 300-cases of the fever. Before this outbreak there had only been one case of the fever recorded in that country.
The spread of this mosquito is of particular concern because of two other gifts it often carries - dengue fever and yellow fever. Dengue fever has a 7% fatality rate.
The spread of the Asian Tiger has been remarkable. It is now firmly established in much of Latin America, in a minimum of 26 states of the US, in parts of Africa and much of southern and parts of central Europe. In North America it's credited with spreading West Nile, eastern equine encephalomyelitis and Cache Valley virus.

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