Tick-born disease: another fine mess from the people who brought you Global Warming

Have you ever suffered from Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic fever? Thought not, or the chances are you wouldn’t be reading this. It’s a viral disease carried by a tick of the genus Hyalomma, and it’s nasty. It starts with a a headache, fever and muscle pains. Gradually vomiting and diarrhoea take over, followed by intense bleeding under the skin. Death, which usually occurs in between 20-40% of cases, finally occurs by catastrophic liver failure.

All very well, you might say; but I live north of the 50 degree parallel, where the tick cannot exist, so I am safe, right? Wrong. According to Esther Sanchez of El Pais, [1]the tick has now been found in countries as far north as the United Kingdom and Norway. Summers are longer and warmer, winters shorter thanks to global warming and the deadly disease, called CCHF for short, is taking its chance.

And so tick borne diseases take their place in the infamous roll of illnesses that are extending their reach as the climate changes for the worse. Malaria, dengue fever, chikungunya and West Nile virus are the brand leaders right now; but there will be others. Which leads us to a subversive thought. It is hard to bring class actions for very broad, diffuse problems like global warming. But if we could link individual deaths to aspects of climate change, such as these diseases, might it at last be possible to bring some lawsuits against certain climate change deniers and those who may be funding them?

be advised; our link today is in Spanish

[1] https://elpais.com/clima-y-medio-ambiente/2021-10-23/la-garrapata-del-virus-crimea-congo-se-desplaza-hacia-el-norte-de-espana-y-europa-por-el-cambio-climatico.html

#tick disease #global warming #climate change #virus #cchf