After all, sustainable economic development will be undermined if the health of the population is threatened. Warmer temperatures combined with increased ambient UV radiation could worsen photochemical smog, especially over urban areas. In temperate regions, climate change would affect vector-borne diseases by altering the vector's range, reproductive and biting rates, as well as pathogen development rate within the vector host. Malaria has been observed in non endemic high elevations in Africa during unseasonably warm conditions. In an earlier study in Mexico, the most important predictor of dengue prevalence in communities was found to be the median temperature during the rainy season.
Temperature also drives epidemic dynamics of dengue transmission.
Warmer water temperatures in breeding vessels reduces the size of emerging adults that subsequently must feed more frequently' to develop an egg batch. Thus, mosquitoes bite more frequently and are potentially more infectious at warmer temperatures. Marine phytoplankton blooms include red tides that cause diarrheal and paralytic diseases. Vibrio cholera has been found to be associated with zooplankton, and blooms from warmer sea surface temperatures could expand this important reservoir from which cholera epidemics may arise. Human susceptibility to disease might be further compounded by malnutrition due to climate impacts on agriculture.