New hope for leishmaniasis

Leishmaniasis is a climate-sensitive disease. Changes in temperature, rainfall, and humidity can have strong impacts on the sandfly vector, altering their distribution and influencing their survival and population sizes. Increased temperatures shorten vector development time, reduce Leishmania parasite incubation time, and increase vector biting rates, allowing transmission in areas not previously endemic for the disease. Poor and marginalized communities will be hit disproportionately harder by the effects of climate change, and droughts, famines, and floods can also lead to displacement and migration of immunologically naive people to areas where leishmaniasis is endemic, posing a threat of leishmaniasis outbreaks.