SA Estimates 400% Increase In Malaria Risk With Global Warming - Reuters

JOHANNESBURG, May 5 (Reuters) - Climate change will quadruple the number of South Africans at risk from malaria by 2020, bringing the mosquito-borne disease south towards the country's commercial heartland, a minister said on Thursday.

Mosquitoes carrying the malaria parasite are currently only found near South Africa's northern borders with Mozambique and Zimbabwe, but Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said this was likely to change.

"Climate change could lead to provinces like Mpumalanga, Limpopo, the North West, KwaZulu-Natal and even Gauteng becoming malaria zones by 2050," he said in comments to a Cape Town press briefing.

Gauteng contains both the capital Pretoria and commercial hub Johannesburg, which along with Cape Town are among only a handful of African urban centres free from a disease that kills more than a million people a year worldwide, mostly children."

EDIT

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L05618177.htm

Michael Crichton says so.....