“Establishing a firm link between environmental change and human disease has always been an iffy proposition. Now, however, a team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, writing in the current (June 16, 2010) online issue of the CDC journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, presents the most enumerated case to date linking increased incidence of malaria to land-use practices in the Amazon.
The report, which combines detailed information on the incidence of malaria in 54 Brazilian health districts and high-resolution satellite imagery of the extent of logging in the Amazon forest, shows that clearing tropical forest landscapes boosts the incidence of malaria by nearly 50 percent.
“It appears that deforestation is one of the initial ecological factors that can trigger a malaria epidemic,” says Sarah Olson, the lead author of the new report and a postdoctoral fellow at the Nelson Institute, Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment.”
Read more at Science Daily
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hey! even if this isnt true, it sounds like a rumor worth spreading!
Duur !
Cutting down the trees would not significantly reduce the mosquito population but it would greatly reduce, or even wipe out completely, most of the animals which feed on them.
Therefore there would be more mosquitoes & that would result in a more cases of malaria.
QED.