Environmental Suitability of Infections in a Warming Climate: An Early Warning System.

BACKGROUND

Some spp. are pathogenic and ubiquitous in marine waters with low to moderate salinity and thrive with elevated sea surface temperature (SST).

OBJECTIVES

Our objective was to monitor and project the suitability of marine conditions for infections under climate change scenarios.

METHODS

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) developed a platform (the ECDC Map Viewer) to monitor the environmental suitability of coastal waters for spp. using remotely sensed SST and salinity. A case-crossover study of Swedish cases was conducted to ascertain the relationship between SST and infection through a conditional logistic regression. Climate change projections for infections were developed for Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 and RCP 8.5.

RESULTS

The ECDC Map Viewer detected environmentally suitable areas for spp. in the Baltic Sea in July 2014 that were accompanied by a spike in cases and one death in Sweden. The estimated exposure-response relationship for infections at a threshold of 16°C revealed a relative risk (RR)=1.14 (95% CI: 1.02, 1.27; p=0.024) for a lag of 2 wk; the estimated risk increased successively beyond this SST threshold. Climate change projections for SST under the RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios indicate a marked upward trend during the summer months and an increase in the relative risk of these infections in the coming decades.

CONCLUSIONS

This platform can serve as an early warning system as the risk of further infections increases in the 21st century due to climate change. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP2198.