Emerging impacts of climate change on human-health in Santos municipality in the context of São Paulo State

Abstract

In Brazil, around 12.5 million cases of Dengue fever were recorded from 1990 to 2016. The Southeast is the most affected region with just over 6 million cases registered during this period with linear increase of 47,000 cases per year. In this chapter we present an overview of environmental risk management, associating the concepts with case studies of how Dengue fever outbreaks respond to climate variability. We also bring a discussion on how some factors can influence future patterns of Dengue fever in São Paulo State. Dengue fever incidence clearly responds to temperature increases that are predicted to increase in the future. Without any prophylactic measures public treatment costs are likely to increase in the future. These costs are likely to be much higher if we consider the other diseases associated with the same vector such as Zikka and Chicungunha, plus emergency actions to mitigate the problem during outbreaks. Investments must be allocated for prevention focusing on long-term monitoring of temperature and El Niño data. Authorities must be alerted when mean temperature surpasses 24 °C, because of the measured increase of dengue cases during the El Niño years. Finally, prophylactic measures must be intensified between March and May, when the disease peaks in the region.