Evidence Submitted to House of Lords: Inquiry on ‘Aspects of the Economics of Climate Change’

INTRODUCTION I am a specialist in the natural history and biology of mosquitoes, the transmission dynamics and epidemiology of the diseases they transmit, and strategies for their control. My entire career, more than thirty years, has been devoted to this complex subject. My research has included malaria, filariasis, dengue, yellow fever, St Louis encephalitis and West Nile encephalitis. My research has taken me to many countries in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Pacific. I spent 21 years as a Research Scientist for the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC). At present, I am a Professor at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, and am responsible for building a new unit of Insects and Infectious Disease. I have been a member of the WHO Expert Advisory Committee on Vector Biology and Control since 1998, and have served on WHO Scientific Working Group (SWG) on Insect Disease Vectors and Human Health and several other UN panels. I have served as a consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and other international and national agencies in investigations of outbreaks of mosquito-borne disease, as well as of AIDS and Ebola Haemorrhagic Fever. I was a Lead Author of the Health Section of the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change (U.S. Global Change Research Program). I am past-Chairman of the American Committee of Medical Entomology of the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, and of several committees of other professional societies. The comments that follow are restricted to the Health Chapters of IPCC Working Group II (Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability) in the second and third Assessment Reports. Mosquito-borne diseases have figured prominently these reports, although in my opinion, and that of many of my colleagues, their pronouncements. But first I need to give you some background on mosquito-borne diseases. I will use malaria as an example.