On the planetary scale, ecological changes are being driven by the ongoing global warming . Since feeding is what transmits the disease, more feeding should translate into more cases of illness. Warming could change humidity. Higher humidity would prolong the life of many insect vectors, while lower humidity causes some vectors to breed more often. Increased precipitation could speed the breeding of mosquitoes, a principal viral vector.
Wind distributes such vectors as mosquitoes, sandflies and blackflies.
More storms, an expected result of global warming, could thus help spread insects and disease. As people travel deeper into forests in South America and Africa to cut wood or hunt, they have brought back an assortment of new diseases, likely including big-ticket bugs like AIDS and Ebola. But regrowth of forests can also cause problems, Molyneux wrote. Lyme, juiced Lyme disease, first recognized in the United States in the 1970s, demonstrates how forest regrowth can improve habitat for disease vectors. The fever, malaise, fatigue, headache, and muscle and joint aches of Lyme are caused by a bacterium that is transmitted by the bite of deer ticks and black-legged ticks.