Climate change and aid cuts could bring tropical insect-borne diseases to UK, scientists warn
25 May 2025, 00:52 | Updated: 25 May 2025, 00:59
Experts have warned that aid cuts and temperature rises could coalesce into a future epidemic.
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Scientists have said that as well as warmer temperatures potentially bringing infected insects to the UK, aid cuts abroad could lead to the collapse of epidemic surveillance in already affected countries.
The warning comes after an announcement from the UK Health Security Agency that the West Nile Virus had been discovered in UK mosquitoes for the first time.
The Agency said there hadn’t been any recorded transmission of the virus between mosquito and human, and that the general risk was currently low - but the revelation does spell concern for other tropical diseases.
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The transmission of zoonotic diseases like West Nile Virus, malaria, zika and Dengue Fever relies on the migration of specific mosquito species.
For a disease to spread, those mosquitoes would need to bring an infection from its original climate, bite a human, and then that infected human would need to be bitten by another mosquito of the correct species.
At the moment, the UK does not have sufficient numbers of the relevant mosquito species for a serious tropical disease outbreak.
However, experts say the biggest short-term risk of an epidemic spreading in the UK isn’t from the mass migration of mosquitoes - but an unmonitored outbreak in endemic countries due to aid cuts.
Scientists say the key to keeping these tropical diseases at bay is to tackle them where they originate.
“As we learned from the pandemic, infectious diseases have no borders and can spread quickly when the conditions are right,” says Hannah Ferguson professor of infectious disease ecology at the University of Glasgow.
“The government’s cuts to foreign aid will lead to a collapse in crucial surveillance, control and treatment programmes in endemic countries, causing more deaths from tropical disease.”
“The best way to defend ourselves is to not only maintain, but strengthen investment into the global elimination efforts that will ultimately keep all of us safe from tropical disease.”
