diseased mosquitoes are coming your way

I've posted many times before about sea level rise as being the opening consequence of climate change.  But now we have something else to worry about that's happening right now, disease carrying mosquitoes.

The Aedes aegypti mosquito, which spreads Zika, dengue and chikungunya, has been turning up places where it had rarely or never been seen. Credit Marvin Recinos/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images        

A mounting number of citations on a popular disease-tracking website suggests that mosquitoes may be moving into new ecological niches with greater frequency. 

The website, ProMED mail, has carried more than a dozen such reports since June, all involving mosquito species known to transmit human diseases. 

Most reports have concerned the United States, where, for example, Aedes aegypti — the yellow fever mosquito, which also spreads Zika, dengue and chikungunya — has been turning up in counties in California and Nevada where it had never, or only rarely, been seen.

And if you travel, you may find these disease-carrying mosquitoes in parts of the world you wouldn't have expected, like Europe,

Aedes albopictus established itself in Italy and southern France, where it has spread chikungunya — a painful fever known as “bending up disease.” British health authorities now have more than 30 surveillance stations at ports, airports and truck stops, on guard against the mosquito. 

In August, The Daily Express newspaper said officials had “blitzed a clutch of notorious tiger mosquitoes suspected to have smuggled their way into Britain through the Eurotunnel.”

Like sea level continuing to rise, they are continuing to move north.  So sooner or later you will be in danger of being exposed to diseases like yellow fever, Zika, dengue, and chikungunya where you are now living.