Dengue’s link to El Niño
As Cambodia contends with one of the strongest El Niño cycles in recent memory, a new study of millions of dengue cases over the past two-decades-plus has shown that spikes in the deadly disease across Southeast Asia may be linked to the weather phenomenon.
Upswings in dengue cases follow a cyclical pattern, and it had already been predicted that 2015 would see such an upswing, but one health official on 5 October said the heightened temperatures brought on by El Niño – along with Cambodia’s unique developmental circumstances – will only serve to intensify the severity of the problem.
