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The first cases of dengue fever to be reported in Japan in 70 years sent government health officials scrambling to fumigate Yoyogi Park, where so far at least 22 people -- none of whom have traveled abroad recently -- are believed to have contracted the disease from mosquito bites.
The dengue outbreak, reports Yukan Fuji (Aug 31), was not entirely surprising, as it has been predicted for some time now that climate change is likely to make Japan increasingly vulnerable to tropical diseases, including dengue fever, West Nile fever, malaria and yellow fever.
The first person reported to have been infected with the dengue virus was a teenage girl from Saitama Prefecture. She was followed by a Tokyo male in his 20s and another female. Ground zero for the infection in all four cases was Yoyogi Park.
"In the future we may be getting reports of new cases from all over the place," predicted University of Tokyo Prof Atsuro Hamada.
About half the cases of dengue fever are asymptotic, and only a very small percentage of people who contract it, around 1%, become violently ill. As such, the disease itself isn't a major problem. Rather, the problem is what made it possible for an outbreak of dengue to occur in Tokyo.
"There are concerns that it might be related to the rise in average temperatures due to climate change," a source at the Environment Ministry is quoted as saying. "This year, there have been frequent heavy downpours, and the volume of rainfall has been heavier than in previous years. We believe this is producing more mosquitoes and other carriers of viruses, creating more factors that enable the spread of diseases."
The World Health Organization (WHO) has also noted that irregular weather patterns brought on by the El Nino phenomenon cause heavier precipitation. Epidemics of cholera were frequent occurrences in South America up to 1990 in years when ocean temperature rose as a result of El Nino.
The Asian tiger mosquito that transmits Dengue fever had previously not been found north of the Kanto area, but recently it has moved as far north as Morioka in Iwate Prefecture. This indicates the high likelihood that changing weather patterns are enabling carriers of tropical diseases to spread to increasingly wider parts of the archipelago.
And dengue may just be the beginning. In 1999, New York City first reported cases of West Nile fever (WNF), common in Uganda and other African countries. It has since spread from Canada to the Caribbean, and killed 286 people in the U.S. in 2012, with Texas being the hardest hit. No vaccine to prevent it exists.
"WNF is now spread in North America, Africa, and Europe to Central Asia," says Dr Yoshikazu Shirai, an authority on vermin. "The Culex and Asian tiger mosquito, which inhabit Japan, are both carriers of the virus, which can be spread by migratory birds. And once the virus arrives at a locale, there's the danger that infections will spread."
Dr Shirai says that malaria, of which cases have not appeared for over 50 years, used to be common in Japan, which is why caution is warranted.
"Epidemics happened many times in the past," Shirai said. "Now there's a danger of 'airport malaria,' in which virus-bearing mosquitoes fly into the country aboard passenger jets.
"The distribution of the Asian tiger mosquito is spreading," he adds. "In addition to the dengue virus, it can also carry yellow fever, the disease that took the life of humanitarian physician Hideyo Noguchi in Ghana. It's a fearsome virus that kills from 30% to 50% of those infected."
The outbreak of dengue fever in Yoyogi Park might very well be a harbinger of even nastier things to come.
© Japan Today
46 Comments
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turbotsat
If the mosquitoes rode in on global warming, wouldn't they have shown up in southern Japan first?
1st case in Japan in 70 years shows up in Tokyo!
StormR
Thought the planet was cooling now, did last week anyway.
I don't think scientists actually know, seems they are often like the weather man, who just make guesses at what is going to happen.
nath
Global warming is the incorrect term. It's called climate change. Thinking that it's cold one day equates to climate change being a myth is a failure in logic.
No. If that were the case, you wouldn't find 99% of the scientists studying the matter in agreement.
gaijinfo
That might be another myth in logic. You maybe can explain why the polar ice caps are THICKER This year than last?
At any rate, when the climate changes, it's going to change, regardless of what scientists and the politicians who support them think will happen.
And if the climate decides to get warmer, places like Japan are going to feel the consequences, regardless of any carbon tax scheme people come up with. But warming climates generally means it's easier to grow stuff. But either way, what's coming is coming.
I think it's incredibly egotistical for scientists and their political buddies think that humans can actually CHANGE climate change.
If warmer weather IS coming, and it IS bringing bad things with it, the best thing to do is MOVE. Not stand around and try to claim human authority over the weather.
GalapagosnoGairaishu
Try telling that to a polar bear. If you can find one.
HaraldBloodaxe
If warmer weather IS coming, and it IS bringing bad things with it, the best thing to do is MOVE.
Where to? It's called GLOBAL warming. I only know of one globe we can live on.
turbotsat
BOGUS figure ...
ReformedBasher
Worries me that
a) Some people can't work this out
b) They can but pretend things are different
Figure of speech. As is "99% of people with average intelligence could work out the above sentence is a figure of speech".
Of course, in reality, we both know that "100% of people with average intelligence could work out the above sentence is a figure of speech". Just like "100% of people with average intelligence could work that we are on the road to environmental disaster and not deny it".
Or at least I know it.
We should all be concerned about the biggest threat to our existence, ever.
Frungy
Japan has always had tiger mosquitos. Climate change may be making life a little easier for them, but it doesn't magically introduce dengue fever to an area.
The real factor here is that before this time travel was slower and people traveled less. Now that more people are traveling more, and traveling more quickly (before symptoms begin to show and they can be quarantined) Japan is more vulnerable.
What makes Japan different from other countries? As an island nation it has been more difficult for new diseases to enter. This has resulted in the disease control protocols being quite lax. Japan needs to shift its paradigm.
Island does not equal Safe.
Gary Hawaii
There is no global warming, didn't you get the memo.
Myth of arctic meltdown: Stunning satellite images show summer ice cap is thicker and covers 1.7million square kilometres MORE than 2 years ago
sangetsu03
Actually, the correct figure is 97%, not 99%. The survey which determined the "97%" figure was conducted by the University of Illinois in 2009. To arrive at the 97% figure, 3146 scientists were surveyed. In order for their answers to qualify for the survey, only climate scientists were selected. Out of that pool, only those scientists whose work was more than 50% involved with climate change were allowed to take part in the survey. This amounted to 79 scientists. When polled, 77 said they believed climate change was occurring, 2 did not. So out of 3146, it takes only 77 to get a 97% concensus. But whenever there is news about the subject, we hear the quote "97% of the world's scientists agree that manmade climate change is happening." Funny how 77 scientists suddenly become "97% of the world's scientists", isn't it?
The survey provides the same results you might get if you asked a group of cattle ranchers if beef is good for you.
Droll Quarry
@Gary Hawaii
I got the memo... It read something like this: Start preaching global warming to the facebook/twitter/invironmental dweebs. Ensure that you slime the people who are working hard and have made a comfortable life by that hard work as the culprits. The welfare crowd will be on board as long as you give them a free cell phone and free calls to tweet this injustice. We should be able to get governments to line up with tax dollars to do endless studies of this uuummm pending disaster. Find some fat ex-politician as a spokesperson and ensure they have a first class seat on the free money gravy train. There will be people who try to counter the argument with facts and figures, ensure they are slimed by our disinformation department and painted as charlatans and right wingers. Stay strong team!! We stand to make a lot of money before it becomes impossible to pump enough smoke and fuzzy science up the public's wazoo to keep this golden goose from laying a Popsicle.
senseiman
That is a badly biased analogy. Cattle ranchers are not experts in dietary health so you wouldn`t ask them that question in the first place. Climate scientists, on the other hand, are people who actually study climate science so it makes sense to guage their opinion on the matter. The alternative is leaving the question open to all scientists, including geologists and others whose opinion on questions of climate science would be no more useful than that of a lay person.
I take your implication to be that climate scientists, like cattle farmers, have an interest in promoting a certain agenda. Simply asserting the existence of such a bias is not the same as actually refuting the scientific findings that those scientists have made independent of their answers to a survey. The scientific arguments they and the IPCC make are pretty solid.
In contrast, the comments here against the existence of climate change (admittedly not a representative sample of counter-arguments, but its what we have to go on) amount to:
1) scientists dont know what they are talking about because it was cold last week. 2) there is lots of ice in the polar regions this year therefore the climate isnt changing. 3) liberal welfare freaks are giving out cell phones for free so people can complain about stuff.
I think It will take considerably more than this to sway my decision to rely on actual experts on this issue.
WilliB
Maybe it would, but the article writer seems to have missed that for the last few years, we have had global cooling. Talk about a rethorical question!
sangetsu03
The anology is entirely accurate. Scientists are no more noble than cattle ranchers when it comes to obtaining funding. Climate change is a multi-billion dollar industry, championed by politicians (the least noble class of people known to humankind) and funded by consumers and taxpayers. Climate "science" is not being held to the same rigorous standards as other sciences. Doesn't it alarm you that not one, single, climate model or prediction has proven even remotely accurate? We still cannot accurate predict weather more than 48 hours in the future, despite a full array of weather satellites and super computers being used by meteorologists. If we do not have the means to predict short-term weather, then we certainly don't have the means to predict long-term climate, period. It should come as surprise that every single last one of the IPCC's global warming predictions have failed to occur.
Since there has no global warming for one-and-a-half decades, how can climate change be causing an increase in the numbers of disease-bearing mosquitos? Simply stated, it can't, so the news article above is nonsense.
senseiman
The analogy, on its face, is inaccurate. You are conflating a potential bias problem (shared by cattle ranchers and climate scientists) with actual expertise regarding the subject at question (something climate scientists have, despite the field's limitations, but cattle ranchers in your analogy lack with regard to the question of dietary health, a subject on which they would have no expertise).
Well this is just a silly thing to say (not to mention a logical fallacy). What you are saying is basically "Look, a politician supports this. Since politicians are bad, this must be bad."
Climate science is incredibly complex. Climate scientists readily acknowledge the limitations of their knowledge. What we have to work with is the best estimates possible. We know that temperatures increased significantly over the 20th century and are currently, and fairly consistently, among the highest on record. The best scientific explanation for that is increased CO2 in the atmosphere. Putting more CO2 in the atmosphere is reasonably predicted to cause more climate change in the future, even though they cannot say how much, when, etc.
If we are just talking about the mosquitos in the article then I completely agree - climate change had nothing to do with that.
chikv
I will leave the climate change determination to people who have published their studies so other people can criticize their methodology.
In this case weather and human travel will affect the possibility of having dengue cases. Tokyo have a lot of human travel and a good year for mosquito reproduction, so domestic cases appearing are not surprising. Kyushu had the weather but not the amount of foreign cases bringing the virus to Japan, so the possibility of cases is lower.
Now, climate on the opposite will affect the possibility of having a huge epidemic, right now the mosquitoes die every winter in places like Tokyo, so the few cases that appear every year (200 or so) are not enough to propagate without control until the end of the season. the most that can happen is like now, a few dozens of cases and then the vector disappear. Bring winter a couple of degrees warmer and the mosquitoes will be able to survive it, that will keep the human-mosquito-human cycle going without interruption, those few dozens cases will be present at the beginning of the season and by the end you will have a real epidemic. There is a reason why Dengue is considered a TROPICAL disease, climate change towards tropical will increase its importance.
So yes, climate change CAN increase the number of disease bearing mosquitoes, and in places with a human density as high as Tokyo that can bring a huge disaster. Looking at evidence like the new cases in areas where it was never seen before (like Katmandu in Nepal in the last few years) the question is not if Tokyo will see a big Dengue epidemic, but when.
Novenachama
In general, climate change is the key factor controlling where the species lives. In other words the Dengue fever does grow because of climate change especially in warmer temperatures when the incubation period of the virus shortens so a mosquito does not have to survive as long to have a chance of becoming infectious. Also as the temperature gets warmer it will increase the vector and the virus will survive. But when the climate changes, the range of mosquito increases and individuals move to stay in a suitable habitat. Thus the range of the mosquito is actually increasing due to the global warming or climate change. In the end the Japanese health official must step up to the plate and improve the mosquito control problem before it gets worse.
smithinjapan
“Epidemics happened many times in the past,” Shirai said. “Now there’s a danger of ‘airport malaria,’ in which virus-bearing mosquitoes fly into the country aboard passenger jets."
Yeah, of course, they must have invaded Japan from foreign lands, flown straight to Yoyogi park without biting a soul, then deciding to set up camp there and torture the poor locals.
sangetsu03
Science has been lacking at the IPCC as the world fails to get warmer. Here are some quotes from The Guardian in 2009:
The study was published, but how much warming occurred from 2009 to present? None at all. The "new research" which "firmly rejects that argument" turned out to be wrong, didn't it? Even the most ardent believer in climate change cannot argue against that fact.
Since the science doesn't seem to be panning out, the IPCC is moving away from facts (or the lack thereof), and moving more toward public relactions:
In the meantime, it is already snowing in Wyoming, and the summer months have seen further accumulation or arctice sea ice.
turbotsat
Frungy says Japan has always had tiger mosquitoes. But the meme is going to be global warming causing dengue fever in Tokyo.
As for the bogosity of the 97 pct figure, articles discussing that bogosity: http://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=consensus
And as for the mention of polar bears, transcript of inspector general interviewing the polar-bears-are-drowning! scientist who inspired Al Gore: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/29/inspector-generals-transcript-of-drowned-polar-bear-researcher-being-grilled/
Jeff Huffman
Stands to reason that it will. However, insects turn up far away from home hitching all manner of rides. That's why we have Taiwanese termites here in Hawaii and the mainland and how the gypsy moth got here.
Frungy
That's because most memes are created by idiots on the internet.
Check the distribution of Japanese encephalitis (primary disease vector mosquitoes). It covers the whole of Japan. Check back a hundred years ago and you'll find Japanese art depicting people putting up mosquito nets.
The bottom line is that mosquitoes are everywhere in Japan already (even Hokkaido). Once they have 100% coverage of a country global warming or climate change or whatever they're calling it this week is not going to increase that to 110%.
Dengue fever in Tokyo has been tracked back to people traveling to foreign countries and bringing back the disease with them.
That's the bottom line.
... and anyone who's relying on memes for meaningful information deserves their continued ignorance.
Fadamor
Global Climate Change happens in a yearly cycle due to the tilt of the Earth's axis. Global Warming describes the current trend where over years the average temperatures on various points of the globe's surface are rising in comparison to the same locations at the same time of the season for previous years. Believe it or not, there is NO controversy over whether the Earth is going through a period of Global Warming. ALL scientists agree that the average temperatures are warmer now than they have ever been previously. The controversy is over what is contributing to the Global Warming.
Those ships traversing the Northern Passage over the top of Canada during the Summer (previously an impossible feat) might be surprised to learn the water they're sailing through is actually "thicker ice".
GyGene
Time to pull out the old DDT boys. That'll kill them skeets.
Michael Reed
It be alright. :)
Arimura
Climate has always been changing and will continue to change. When the world stopped warming (in spite of accelerated CO2 emissions) the climate fear mongers and felt the need to change their "global warming" slogan to "climate change". "climate change" is a tautology, it's like saying a "dead corpse".
sangetsu03
I thought it was "97%" that agreed, or at least that's what last year's IPCC report said. And of course those 77 scientists who comprise that magic 97% are all government funded.
Arimura
Maybe you are thinking of seasons? Climate cycles are not perfectly periodic but cooling/warming pattern periods are in the order of ~30 years. That is why the doom and gloom scenario of the 70s was Global Cooling.
stormcrow
I talk with doctors here in Japan on a regular basis, and from what they're telling me, yes, it is something doctors are concerned about. The nastiest diseases, according to them, originate in the tropics, so as the global temperatures increase so will the susceptibility to deadly diseases.
sangetsu03
It wasn't impossible for Amundsen more than 100 years ago, was it?
Normal average for ice is 2.4 million square miles, right now it is 2.36 million square miles. There was supposed to be little or no ice by now.
Frungy
... and if you believe that's a valid argument I have a lovely gold-plated watch (1micron thick) that you'd be happy to exchange for a solid gold watch.
Area is not the same as volume... even an elementary student should understand that.
Artic ice volume is falling.
Pandabelle
About 97% of ALL scientists are government funded to more or less degrees. Who do you think pays for basic research?
You need to understand that there is no dispute at all in the scientific community regarding climate change. Politicians and political pundits may disagree but that's because they are either taking big money from interests that do not want action on environmental issues or are know-nothing idiots or both. Scientific consensus is very broad on this.
sangetsu03
In this you are wrong, there is intense dispute.
Science is about facts, plain and simple, not concensus. Here is a good quote regarding concensus:
"I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had."
"Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus."
"There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period."
The IPCC is a political body which pays scientists to produce the results policymakers want. Need an example?
Here is an interesting list of points listed in the peer-reviewed chapter 8 of the 1996 IPCC report on climate change. They were to be included in the 1996 report.
"None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed [climate] changes to the specific cause of increases in greenhouse gases."
*"While some of the pattern-base studies discussed here have claimed detection of a significant climate change, no study to date has positively attributed all or part [of the climate change observed] to [man-made] causes. Nor has any study quantified the magnitude of a greenhouse gas effect or aerosol effect in the observed data - an issue of primary relevance to policy makers."+
"Any claims of positive detection and attribution of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total natural variability of the climate system are reduced."
"While none of these studies has specifically considered the attribution issue, they often draw some attribution conclusions, for which there is little justification."
"When will an anthropogenic effect on climate be identified? It is not surprising that the best answer to this question is, `We do not know. "'
But all of these points were removed without consulting the peer-review group. It was found that the above points "did not agree with the requirements of policy makers", so these points, and 10 others were deleted, and replaced with the two following paragraphs:
"There is evidence of an emerging pattern of climate response to forcing by greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols ... from the geographical, seasonal and vertical patterns of temperature change. ... These results point toward a human influence on global climate. [ch.8 p.412]"
"The body of statistical evidence in chapter 8, when examined in the context of our physical understanding of the climate system, now points to a discernible human influence on the global climate. [ch.8 p.439]"
These two latter paragraphs were added by Dr Ben Santer, lead author of the report. These paragraphs were not approved by the official peer-review group of scientists. In fact, the peer review scientists were never told of the changes, they first heard of them when the report was read to the public in Madrid in 1996.
Since any and all IPPC science is subject to edit and change by policy makers (politicians), how can we even call the process "science?"
And now we arre approaching two decades without any of the warming which was predicted by the 1996 report.
How about Antarctic ice, that is at record volumes, isn't it? Didn't the British Antarctic Expedition last month experience the coldest temperature ever recorded by man? Weren't we told by the "concensus" of scientists just a few years ago that such a thing wasn't possible? Were they wrong? Apparently so. What else are they wrong about? How about every prediction of warming they have made for the last 20 years? All have been proven wrong, have they not? Provide me a single example of even one warming prediction which has actually occurred. There are none.
Frungy
No, it isn't. You're confusing area and volume again.
No, they didn't. But the temperature in the Antarctic is rising because drumroll LESS ICE.
No, they weren't, you just misunderstood. In the same way that you misunderstood the difference between volume and area, and the same way that you can't connect less ice with higher temperatures.
Here's a hint for life, just because you misunderstand doesn't make the other person wrong.
sangetsu03
This year, Antarctic sea ice has expanded its frigid reach with unprecedented speed, setting records in June and July. By the time spring punctures the long Antarctic night, 2014 stands a decent chance of topping 2012 and 2013, which each broke records of maximum total ice extent.
In fact, since scientists started making satellite observations in the late 1970s, they have watched winter sea ice around Antarctica swell slowly but indisputably, despite predictions that it should shrink.
Or how about this tweet from a climate change researcher last month with the BAS?
Whilst all the fun was happening at #halley6 (not that it's over) we had the lowest ever recorded temps down here at -55.4. Which was nice
It has not been rising, it has been falling.
The IPCC report AR-4 called for a increase of .5 to 1 decgree of warming by now. This did occur. This report called for warming of around 4 degrees over the course of one century. The lastest report (AR-7) has reduced this to 1.7 degrees. At the current rate of climate change, it appears that even this increase will not occur. I have no problem understanding what was written in the reports, and comparing it to what has actually occured. It appears all the "misunderstanding" is yours.
Frungy
Sangetsu03
"fright reach" = area. "total ice extent" = area". Area is not important. Total volume is. A gold-plated watch is not worth the same as a solid gold watch.
A tweet is not a reliable source. There's nothing else anywhere confirming this tweet.You're mistaken, about a great many things.
sangetsu03
Sorry, but all climate change reports have called for a reduction in extent and volume. The opposite is happening. It was predicted that extent would decrease for each of the last three years, but each year has see a record level of increase. Is this not so? Once again, I challenge you to find one, single IPCC prediction of increased temperature which has actually occurred.
The tweet was made by Anthony Lister of the Bristish Antarctic Survey on August 7th of this year. He is a climate-change researcher. The temps he quoted are in fact part of the official temperature record. According to IPCC scientists, we should not have seen the record for absolute cold broken, but it was.
Pandabelle
Sangetsu, I am a working scientist and have been so for decades. Please don't give me lectures on the nature of scientific inquiry and thought. Especially when it's something like
Come on now. You should know better than that.
Frungy
Bull.
Here's just one example (and that's all I need since you said "all"), and this one is from back in 2001, which is the very first one I looked at:
Again, going back to the 2001 report:
You're mistaken, again and again and again and again. You have no credibility.
A tweet is not a reliable source. There's nothing else anywhere confirming this tweet.The tweet was made by Anthony Lister of the Bristish Antarctic Survey on August 7th of this year. He is a climate-change researcher. The temps he quoted are in fact part of the official temperature record. According to IPCC scientists, we should not have seen the record for absolute cold broken, but it was.
sangetsu03
The 2001 report you just referred to predicted a temperature increase of .3 degrees between 2001 and 2014. There has been no increase, has there? Yes, or no?
Frungy
Yes there was a temperature increase. The temperature rise was 0.21, not 0.3, which is pretty darned accurate considering they're seeing 14 years into the future.
Mistaken again sangestu03.
Todd Topolski
The answer is no. The term global warming specifically means the scam fabricated by a variety of people who want money for nothing and power over others. Their so called warming is based on calling co2 a toxin and fabricating a load of numbers with No basis in reality, such as a global average temp or average conservation of co2, both the relevance of these and they know What they should be.
All of this fabrication is "proven" in rigged computer models which the warmists follow as if a prophetic Bible.
So it is simply not possible for Japan or any other country to be affected by this scam called human via co2 only global warming. Except fir the financial impact of the scam and loss of freedoms.
Frungy
Oh dear, another one.
There is way too much focus on CO2, but the global warming warnings started way before that about CFCs and similar chemicals.
Human-driven climate change is both real and very, very dangerous, and 100 or even 200 years is not very long in human terms, and is WAY too fast for natural change, but we're looking at crisis in 200 years or less.