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Professor Deirdre Hollingsworth, Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at NDM’s Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health and the Big Data Institute, looks at potential ways to advance research on the impact of climate change on malaria and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).

Déirdre Hollingsworth

Climate change is a defining challenge of our time, causing global temperatures to increase, sea levels to rise, and weather patterns to become more extreme and unpredictable. These shifts are not just environmental — they have far-reaching impacts on ecosystems, including by affecting plant, animal and human health, and directly impact livelihoods. 

While everyone will experience changes, the impacts from climate change already disproportionately affect some of the most vulnerable communities worldwide, including those living in deprived regions that are endemic for infectious diseases like malaria and NTDs. 

However, we still have a limited understanding of how climate change may shape the future spread of these diseases, which impairs our ability to design and implement optimised control interventions that safeguard previous global health gains in the fight against these diseases. 

In this blog, we discuss potential ways to advance research that elucidates how climate change may impact the future dynamics of malaria and NTDs, which is critical to addressing the growing impact of these diseases on vulnerable communities worldwide.

Read the full story on the Nuffield Department of Medicine (NDM) website. 

 

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